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I'm just back from a *fabulous* trip to North Carolina and California, but I'm going to wait until I have some photos to post about it. In other news: School Library Journal is going to have a "Battle of the (Kids') Books" in April. It will work something like the NCAA basketball tournament, with books going head to head in a bracket. Along with Lois Lowry, Jon Scieszka, and John Green, I get to be one of the judges. I have no idea how this is going to work, but it sounds like fun, don't it?

Here's what I read on the trip:

SAVVY, by Ingrid Law. Upper middle-grade/YA, one of this year's Newbery Honor titles. Mibs Beaumont turns 13: What will her 'savvy' be, the special power that manifests itself in each of her family members on that birthday? Cool premise, wonderful characters: I was especially impressed with the author's skill in depicting the secondary characters with brevity and precision. I admit to having to swallow hard to get past a couple of plot points--Grandpa's savvy didn't seem believable to me the way the others do, and did the parents really let the road trip go on that long!?--but cheering for Mibs and her cohorts got me through.


NATION, by Terry Pratchett. YA, Printz Honor (gotta love those award lists!). A boy alone after a disaster on a tropical island meets a girl shipwrecked there; together they must rebuild civilization. OK, I was dubious. But this is Pratchett. I knew he would make it work, and it does. Totally.


THE BROOKLYN NINE (MG) and SOMETHING ROTTEN (YA), by Alan Gratz. The author was signing next to me at the North Carolina Reading Association conference, so I bought one of his books and he graciously gave me a copy of another. Alan once told me that while he was collecting a few rejections for his first book, (I think I've got this right) he heard me give a talk on how I try to structure my novels. It was a 'light-bulb' moment for him, and he went home, revised the manuscript, and sold it the next time out (SAMURAI SHORTSTOP). Since then he's gone from strength to strength, with four novels now published in just a few years. He signed my copy of BROOKLYN, "To Linda Sue Park--my inspiration!" Wow.

ROTTEN is a retelling of Hamlet. Yeah, that Hamlet. Moxie, huh? Very clever and nicely done. THE BROOKLYN NINE is nine linked stories about baseball in nine generations of one family. Now you might expect me to like this, baseball and all that, but just because a book is about baseball doesn't mean I'm automatically going to like it. That said, I did like this one--a lot--and what I like most about it is how each story is truly different in subject matter from the others...proving that a love of sport can be far more than a one-dimensional interest, that it can enrich a person's life and enable them to give back in many varied ways.


HARPER LEE, by Kerry Madden. MG biography. More moxie: to take on writing about one of the world's most beloved authors--who is still living and refuses to grant interviews? Maybe you can't ever get to know someone just by reading about them, but this book provides a clear glimpse of the woman who gave the world the gift of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Respectful without fawning, straightforward and still beautifully written. Applause!


Went to the library yesterday. Got a BIG pile of books and can't wait to start plowing through them. First up: Jonathan Stroud's HEROES OF THE VALLEY.



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A LONG WALK TO WATER

THE 39 CLUES

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For someone who's not all that big on Valentine's Day, I seem to have quite a few of these images floating around my brain.
Happy Valentine's Day, again!
Sketched Out

Sci Fi art is some of my favorite, especially retro. Funny I don't care to read Sci Fi anymore but the images can be very cool. I'll be posting some more Sci Fi art later today...