Okay, so somehow I ended up taking a five month hiatus from blogging. Don't know how that happened, but I'm thinking since an April-to-September timeframe coincides with the school break, it must be one of those rhythm things. Not "circadian", more like school-adian or something. But, well, I'm back. And what better way to dive back in than with a celebration, eh?

Happy National Punctuation Day!

Had I known earlier that punctuation baking was an option, I'd be munching on comma-shaped cookies right now, but I didn't, so on this auspicious occasion, I thought I'd confess to share some of my punctuation proclivities, instead. All writers have 'em. It's part of our "voice". Here's mine:

—I'm strongly attached to my Oxford comma, a.k.a serial comma, a.k.a Harvard comma.

—My first drafts always contain way too many ellipses. Delete. Delete. Delete. Well, most of them, anyway.

—My first drafts never contain enough commas. Sprinkle. Sprinkle. Sprinkle.

—I have an overfondness for the exclamation mark. There's just something satisfying about plopping that point after the line that underscores the !!! of it all. However, like the ellipses, most of them don't make it into the final version. Although I did manage to get an exclamation mark in three of my book titles.

—I love the look of "smart" quotation marks in Word, but I don't use them because too often they end up facing the wrong way. If they can't tell the beginning of a quote from the end, then they really aren't too smart, are they? Or maybe it's just non-techno-geek me who hasn't figured out how to use them properly. Heh.

—I'm an em-dash girl. I don't know that there's a piece of my writing that doesn't contain at least one. Such a useful little thing.

—I collect comma commotions and apostrophe catastophes. Somehow this simple little mark can lead to very funny outcomes when used incorrectly—up or down This isn't a sign that I'm a grammar snob, just that I'm easily amused.
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April is National Poetry Month. Like nonfiction, poetry tends to not get its due, so I love that we set aside a whole month to shine a spotlight on it. I hope it gets people into the habit of thinking about poetry. . . a habit that'll carry over into the rest of the year.

Bloggers are featuring children's poetry this month in some very creative ways. Today, I'm going to point you to the Miss Rumphius Effect blog where Tricia has undertaken the gargantuan challenge of featuring an interview with a different children's poet every day this month. And her list will knock your socks off: Joyce Sidman, Paul Janeczko, Lee Bennett Hopkins, Avis Harley, Marilyn Singer, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Jane Yolen, and J. Patrick Lewis to name a few. And the month's just half over!

Happy Poetry Reading!
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BLOG
TOUR
Day 5
Becky at Becky's Book Reviews is hosting the final stop on the Bubble Homes and Fish Farts blog tour today.

It's been a great week! Here's the complete list of stops:

Monday at The Well-Read Child
Tuesday at Abby (the) Librarian
Wednesday at A Year of Reading
Thursday at Celebrate Story
Friday at Becky's Book Reviews.
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The shortlists for the BC Book Prizes have been announced. This is a very prestigious award. I'm so proud of my writer and illustrator friends whose names appear on these shortlists. Way to go, guys!

Children's Literature is represented by two categories:

Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize
and
Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize

Here are the shortlists:

Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize

Bonechiller
by Graham McNamee
Wendy Lamb Books

The Lit Report
by Sarah N. Harvey
Orca

My One Hundred Adventures
by Polly Horvath
Groundwood

The Séance
by Iain Lawrence
Delacorte Books for Young Readers

A Thousand Shades of Blue
by Robin Stevenson
Orca

Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize

Good-bye Marianne
by Irene N. Watts
Illustrated by Kathryn E. Shoemaker
Tundra

The King Has Goat Ears
by Katarina Jovanovic
Illustrated by Philippe Beha
Tradewind

Polar Worlds: Life at the Ends of the Earth
by Robert Bateman
Scholastic Canada Ltd

Rosie and Buttercup
by Chieri Uegaki
Kids Can Press

Stanley At Sea
by Linda Bailey
Kids Can Press

Full descriptions are available on the BC Book Prizes website (scroll down to the Egoff and Christie prizes).
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If you've never heard of justonemorebook.com grab a cuppa (there's way more than a cuppa's worth, you'll need a refill, for sure) and head over there to listen to their podcast chats about children's books and interviews with children's book creators.

Today, Andrea and Mark are talking about Bubble Homes and Fish Farts. You can link to that podcast from here.

If you're interested in what other people are saying about the book, I've posted some links on my website.

Non-thebook posts resume tomorrow. :^)
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Okay, so right up front I'm going to apologize for spending a disproportionate amount time talking about Bubble Homes and Fish Farts this month. But ya know...having a book come out, is kind of like having a baby. It's a VERY exciting event. Like a new parent, you carry your new book around everywhere, showing everyone you meet...you send out announcements and talk incessantly about the latest cute thing it did, sometimes to the rolling eyeballs of friends and family. So, forgive me as I jump up and down. I hope you'll share my excitement.


If you're in the Chilliwack or Vancouver BC areas, I hope you'll drop in to one of the upcoming book launches. The Vancouver Aquarium has designated animal bubbles as their Super Saturday theme around my March 14 launch there, with kids activities starting at 8:30 a.m. At the Great Blue Heron Nature Reserve on March 28, we'll have all kinds of outdoor bubbley fun to add to the mix. Carolyn Conahan, my amazing illustrator, has created templates for kids to colour and turn into animal hats and masks. More info about the launches here.

Then, on March 23-27, I'll be setting off on a blog tour. More details to come.

Meanwhile, some nice folks invited me to be a guest on their blogs this month, so if you want to hear me yibber yabber about blogging, head on over to Alice's CWIM Blog, or if you're interested in my thoughts about where the cool science books of today came from, I have an essay up at Unabridged, and the students at the Institute of Children's Literature peppered me with questions about writing process last month and that transcript can be found here.
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Woohoo! The good folks at the Young Adult Library Services Association, fondly referred to as YALSA, have announced a new nonfiction award to be awarded starting in 2010!

The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults

From the YALSA website:
(where you can find more info about the award)

"The award will honor the best nonfiction book
published for young adults (ages 12-18) during a
November 1 – October 31 publishing year. The
award winner will be announced annually at the
ALA Midwinter Meeting Youth Media Awards,
with a shortlist of up to five titles named the first
week of December. The award will be presented
at ALA Annual Conference. "

Literacy is a huge passion of mine. A love of reading opens doors to worlds never imagined (including our own), and is a critical component of success later in life. I can't imagine how the quality of my life would be diminished if I couldn't read. The thought horrifies me.

Because of this, I support online and community literacy efforts whenever I can. Today, I want to get the word out about a new blogger literacy campaign called:

Share a Story - Shape a Future

Using the power of the Internet to share ideas about ways to engage kids as readers, blogging librarians, teachers, parents, and other people passionate about literacy and getting kids to read will offer ideas on ways to promote reading and books:

"This is an ensemble effort not only to celebrate
reading among those of us who already love
books, but to encourage each other to reach
beyond ourselves and do it in a way that we
are neither judging nor instructing others. This
is a venue for communicating practical, useable,
everyday ideas. The event begins March 9, 2009
and lasts one week. Each day we will have a
group of bloggers sharing ideas around a specific
theme. There are a number of book giveaways
and free downloads that will be announced by
the various hosts as we get closer to the kickoff."

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Despite a plethora of amazing nonfiction books for kids published in the last decade or so, children's nonfiction remains the poor cousin in the children's lit field, rarely getting its due, so whenever a new source of nonfiction discussion presents itself, I say get out the noisemakers and celebrate. Got your horns handy?

Right now, my two favourites are:

I.N.K. (Interesting Nonfiction for Kids)
...where you'll find a range of nonfiction authors blogging about whatever's on their minds—it could be Steve Jenkins waxing philosophical about the big picture, Tanya Stone celebrating the release of a book from her heart, or David Schwartz talking popcorn math. Always thoughtful and a little different, with the goal of getting the word out about fresh, exciting, and indeed—as the blog name says—interesting nonfiction for kids.

and

Nonfiction Matters
...where Marc Aronson asks the hard questions about nonfiction for kids---its role in kids' lives and education, and the role nonfiction authors could/would/should play in bringing the world to young minds. Thought-provoking and often cutting edge.

Well, thanks to discovering Peggy Thomas' new Writing Nonfiction for Children blog this week, it looks like the duo may become a trio. Peggy Thomas, the author of Farmer George Plants a Nation and daughter of Margery Facklam (Very cool. Who knew?), describes her new blog as "a site for writers and readers who have an interest in children's books, especially nonfiction. We'll talk about how to write, how to research, and great books and writers out there." Woohoo!

Early into the life of the blog, Peggy's posts so far are meaty and promise thoughtful discussions to come. I'm keeping an eye on this one!
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Laura and I are talking about

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What a terrific list! And, unlike previous years, I've actually read many of them this year.


Easy Readers -
I Love My New Toy by Mo Willems
Fantasy & Science Fiction
___MG - The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
___YA - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Fiction Picture Books -
How to Heal a Broken Wing by Bob Graham
Graphic Novels
___Elementary/Middle Grade -
Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale
(ill. Nathan Hale)
___ Young Adult -
Emiko Superstar by Mariko Tamaki (ill. Steve Ralston)
Middle Grade Fiction -
The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd
Young Adult Fiction -
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
Poetry -
Honeybee by Naomi Shihab Nye
MG/YA Nonfiction -
TBA
Nonfiction Picture Book -
Nic Bishop Frogs by Nic Bishop

I found and gushed about Nic Bishop Frogs last June, so I was very excited when it made the shortlist, and thrilled when my fellow judges ended up loving it as much as I did. The two tenets of the Cybils---literary quality and kid-appeal---are found here in spades. Here's the category blurb:

"Nic Bishop is known for his jaw-dropping nature photography. Open a book cover with his name on it and you'll be greeted with stunning action shots, exquisite attention to detail, and sharp, sharp close-ups that inspire awe. Couple that with Bishop's equally crisp, up-close and personal writing in Nic Bishop Frogs, and you've got an award-winning combination of text and illustration that captures a child-like wonder about a topic that is anything but new. That's quite a feat. Bishop's language is interesting and playful, and his analogies and references are right on, squarely aimed at where kids' heads are at. Simple word choices never talk down, but will allow newish readers to find success easily. The book flows logically, covering life cycle, defense, diet, habitat, and other essentials you'd expect to find in an animal book, but the organization is refreshingly kid-friendly, meandering through the topics as though Bishop and the reader were having a conversation while sitting in a marsh waiting for a frog. It's intimate and personal and accessible---frogs as you've never seen them before. Fascinating process notes are sure to inspire young photographers."

For descriptions of the other winners, check out the Cybils blog.
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After much deliberation and several hours of pounding keyboards to each other from both coasts in two countries, I am excited to report that the nonfiction picture book judging committee has found an overwhelming favourite to declare as this year's Cybils winner. But, heh, sorry . . . it's still a secret, so I can't tell you which book it is, yet! For the official announcement, tune in to the Cybils blog tomorrow, February 14. I'll list it here, too, once it's been made official. Just one more day...

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A few weeks ago, fellow Charlesbridge author Chris Barton listed the next seven things he planned to do to support his forthcoming picture book, The Day-Glo Brothers. He then invited seven authors with new books---moi among them---to chime in with seven things they were doing for their new books.

Well, as you know, I've filed the last month under D for doozie, which put me *waaaaay* behind on blog reading, so I'm just chiming in now. Okay, Chris, here goes...

The next seven things I plan to do to support Bubble Homes and Fish Farts:

1. Give a "Ten Things Every Children's Author Should Know" talk at my local library: February 9, 2009 at 7 pm, Chilliwack main branch. (If you're counting shameless plugs in this blog post, this is #3)

2. Create and send a handout template to the folks at the Vancouver Aquarium for them to photocopy for my March 14 book launch there. This means I get to test different bubble solutions to see what works best for the super duper bubble makers kids will make at the launches. Have I mentioned being an author is fun?

3. Go through my eight pages of teacher guide notes to create science and language arts activities for a Bubble Homes and Fish Farts guide.

4. Be Jan Fields' February Guest Chat Author at the Institute of Children's Literature a.k.a. ICL. I'll be talking about "Funky Nonfiction". For more info, click here and scroll to #4.

5. Chase down and fiddle to get web-ready and print images to complete my online press kit.

6. Sit on the CWILL "How to Get Published" panel at the Vancouver Public Library.

7. Be the March guest blogger at "Unabridged" , the Charlesbridge blog.

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If you're a nonfiction writer, you must, must, must go to the School Library Journal website and read "The Quest for Authenticity: A Writer Reveals How She Finds the Heart of a Story" an article by Tanya Lee Stone. She gets right to the heart of the nonfiction writing journey. Excellent piece. Here's a taste: