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Good morning! Today is feeling even more autumnal than Monday—cold, gray, and rainy. Let's brighten things up with another rundown of what's new from Capstone Fiction!


Today, I'll talk about some of the new novels from Stone Arch Books available now for the Fall 10 season.


First off, I am so excited to introduce Monica! This series is a spin-off of our very popular The Complicated Life of Claudia Cristina Cortez. Monica is Claudia's best friend, but in this series she comes out from behind her friend's shadow. While the Claudia books are peppered with whimsical margin art, the Monica series uses text messages throughout to help tell the story. Young teenage girls are going to love this series. (You, faithful reader, may remember that I've talked about the cover shoot and editing the series in previous entries!)



The Librarian is back, and this time with longer stories, a new sidekick, creepier covers, and gorgeous art. Our Hero, the watcher of the Library of Doom, and his compatriot, the Specialist, battle evildoers who would release the world's most dangerous books. Check out our book trailer!





We have three new series in our Stone Arch Readers program this season. In Level 1, Little Lizard has a party, hangs

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Here's a great story that was just passed along to me from one of our sales reps.

Our rep, Jim, was at an appointment with a media specialist. Jim and the media specialist were sitting behind the circ desk, looking through samples, when a fourth-grade boy came in. "Hi," the media specialist said. "Can I help you find a book?"

"I only read Stone Arch," the boy said. He repeated himself a few times.

The specialist laughed and introduced him to Jim. "This is our Stone Arch Books salesman!"

The kid was thrilled. He immediately marched around the circ desk and--without asking--started digging through the samples Jim had brought on the sales call. He told Jim his favorites of our sets were the Vortex books and the Jake Maddox books.

I love it! These stories always make my day.

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Here's what I found on my desk this morning.


You probably can't tell from the not-great-quality pic, but that's all 12 new Jake Maddox books for Fall 2009. Four copies each, to be checked to make sure all is in order before they're released. Oooh, exciting!!! While checking over these finished copies isn't my favorite job in the world (it takes a while!), it is so thrilling to see the fruits of many months of labor.

Plus, that new book smell? Intoxicating.

more soon--
Beth

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I wrote Over the Net about a volleyball player struggling to master a skill and struggling with her self-confidence. Although Allie plays volleyball, I saw a lot of her in many of the athletes on my varsity basketball team during our 2008-2009 season. We practiced very hard and loved to play, but we couldn’t seem to execute skills in game situations.

I decided to have all of my varsity players read Over the Net and then autograph my copy as both a team-building exercise and a motivation. Some girls read the book in groups out loud to each other. Others read alone on the bus rides to games. Without fail, the girls identified with Allie. My idea did not help us win any games, but I got my message to my athletes without preaching, and I got a great team souvenir!


--Val Priebe

It's Sports and Fitness Month. Today's post comes from author Val Priebe, who wrote the text for the Jake Maddox books Running Rivals, Full Court Dreams, Over the Net, and Stolen Bases. She is also a high-school basketball and lacrosse coach in Minneapolis.

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PLA was a huge success for us. We started things off with a bang on Tuesday, at the Guys Read preconference with the National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature, Jon Sczieska. We sponsored the refreshments at this event and gave away our popular Stone Arch Books bags, filled with Capstone Publishers books and catalogs. Michael and Maryellen were able to attend. They learned a lot (more to come about Guys Read this week!) and even talked to Jon about our books and the Guys Read mission.

On Wednesday, the show and exhibits opened. Special guest Jake Maddox, in his football uniform, was at our booth, signing posters and taking pictures with librarians.

Thursday was another busy day in the booth. We kicked it off with author signings. Michael Dahl signed copies of the Library of Doom books, and Donnie Lemke signed copies of Gulliver’s Travels (a Junior Library Guild pick). We talked to a ton of great librarians.
By that evening, everyone was pretty tired, but we kept it going with a Capstone Publishers open house at our Bloomington offices.

A magic show, cooking demonstration, another author signing, and more—about 80 attendees enjoyed food and merriment. Stone Arch set up a display giving the attendees a peek at how graphic novels were made. The display was a big hit. Our offices never looked so good, or so clean! It was great fun to give librarians a behind-the-scenes look at the offices of a book publisher.


Finally, on Friday Blake Hoena signed copies of Eek and Ack: The Puzzling Pluto Plot. We talked with more librarians from Hawaii to Alaska to Long Island. Later, when we announced that we’d be giving away all the books in our booth at 3 p.m., craziness ensued! The shelves were empty in minutes. We also gave away tons of our Jake Maddox and Library of Doom posters. We tore down the booth and spent the weekend recovering!


If you were in Minneapolis for PLA, how was your conference?

Next, we’re on to Texas for TLA!

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We love to visit libraries and classrooms whenever we can, but we don’t have time to do it as much as we’d like. So we love it when we get letters from fans. Here’s what one 11-year-old reader from Texas wanted to tell Jake Maddox. Our Jake Maddox sports books are some of our most popular with kids, teachers, librarians, and parents. Letters like this keep us energized and excited to publish more great books!



Dear Mr.Maddox,
My name is ------ ------ but just call me
------. I am in 4th grade. I really got
Hooked on your books! Don’t get the wrong
Idea I am not some geek that sits home all
Day reading. Iam 11 years old .The first
Book I read of yours was Mr.Strike Out.
I read a lot of your books.

I am hoping you write me back. If so send me
an autographed picture of you wallet size
Please!!! also a copy of Mr.Strike Out.

YOUR BEST READER
------

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needs a palate cleanser
(More posts about children's books.)

And let me take this opportunity to link to this promotion for libraries (which I've linked to a couple of times before, but I like it so I'm linking to it again so sue me).

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