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The Children's Book Review is 6 years old today.  Check out their Happy Anniversary Win-a-Kindle Contest.

Good luck, everyone! 


  PS.  If you win, let me know!

Children's Book Review offers several lists of favorites here.  Keep The Children's Book Review on your favorites list.  Hmmm, I wonder.  Can I Pin their site?  I can, but only one book at a time. 

The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett by Tom Angleberger is on sale TODAY!!!  Oh, why did I give away my entire Tom Angleberger collection to that school librarian?  WHY? 

I must read this book!

At this time of year I troll Kids' Book Websites to see which great titles I missed during the past 11 months.  Every year there are so many good books out there.

Websites and e-newsletters, like today's featured site, The Children's Book Review, are so helpful to librarians, teachers, parents, reading specialists, booksellers - oh, and young readers, too - who want to keep up with books for young people. 

A few weeks ago, the first book in my Haunted series, The Ghost on the Stairs, was listed in the online article “Five Spooky Kids Authors You Need To Know About,” in The Children’s Book Review. It’s always nice to see publicity about your work, but what made it special was the company I was keeping: Mary Downing Hahn (Wait Till Helen Comes:  A Ghost Story), Alvin Schwartz (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark),  Ray Bradbury (Something Wicked This Way Comes), and a personal favorite, James Howe (the “Bunnicula” series. It was an online form of rubbing elbows with the successful and famous!

It’s also another nice reminder that if we are writers, even “pre-published” ones, we are part of the same writing family. When I first started going to writing conferences, I felt awed by the big names. They were so successful, with dozens or even hundreds of books out. They had won major awards. They were household names — some of them I had read as a child. They were part of another world.

As time went on, I sold more books, and while I’m far from famous, I have established my place in the world of children’s books. I now frequently give workshops at conferences, including the big SCBWI Summer Conference in Los Angeles. Because of mutual writing friends, I’ve had dinner with Bruce Coville, walked on the beach with Gail Carson Levine, and slept on the floor of Ellen Hopkins’s hotel room. I realized that it’s not a matter of me way down here and them way up there. Rather, we’re all on the same continuum. Some people may be farther along, and some may be moving faster. But we’re all on the same path. It’s a nice feeling.

Chris Eboch with the Haunted series

Chris Eboch thinks children’s book writers and illustrators are the nicest people.

2 Comments on Our Writing World, last added: 10/20/2010