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I'm pretty sure that tomorrow is the last day you can vote to put Zoe in a Cheerios box (until 11:59pm Central Time). It's not looking so good for our girl, but the whole thing has been a lot of fun. I realized yesterday that all this blogging and thinking about Zoe has led me to dream up a number of new story ideas for her, and that might be the best prize of all.

I leave in a little bit for the airport because I'll be speaking In Newark, DE tonight at 6pm. Can you come and see me?

If you can't, be sure to tune in to the streaming, live video feed of the event, courtesy of Penguin's Point Of View website!

I'll be talking about Wintergirls tonight (a BIG change from Zoe), which makes it appropriate to point out this Book Recommendation Theme I Never Considered for Wintergirls.

BIG CHANGE IN TOPIC

I haven't had a political rant in while, so I hope you'll indulge me.

There was a time in America when education was totally private: people who wanted their children to go to school paid for it. Eventually, Americans decided that public education was such an incredible public good, i.e., something everyone benefits from, that we moved to a taxpayer-funded system of education, open to all. And, of course, there are still private schools for families who want to make that choice.

There was a time in America when clean water and electricity were available only to the wealthy. The poor pulled up water from wells or dipped buckets into dirty rivers, and lit their homes with candles and lanterns because they had no choice. (My father-in-law, who died in July, did not have electricity on his street until he was 10 years old.)

Our fellow citizens argued and grumbled, but eventually decided that it was a benefit to the entire nation if all Americans had access to water and electricity. So programs were put in place, funded in part by taxpayers and in part by consumers, to make that happen.

Now the debate has turned to health insurance. My grandparents did not have it when they were young. In the middle of the last century, it became a widespread job benefit, and programs were put in place to insurance the vulnerable; elderly, poor and disabled people.

There has been a shift. In the past three generations, insurance has moved from the privelege of the rich to something that most Americans consider a basic part of life, like education, electricity, and water.

(Please let me know if you disagree with that.)

But I am confused. Why is it proving so hard to craft and pass legislation that will accomplish this? I think it's because the chuckleheads in Congress - on both sides of the aisle - are puppets and the insurance companies are pulling the strings. Don't get me wrong - I am all about capitalism. I love capitalism. I am a small business owner and so is my husband and it's working for us. Almost.

The Fat Cats have made the playing field uneven. BH and I cannot join any kind of group insurance plan. (We've spent countless hours examining this.) We pay almost $20,000 a year in insurance premiums just for the two of us. I've thought about canceling the policy and setting that money aside for medical emergencies, but I'm a cancer survivor. If I had a recurrence of cancer without insurance, we would lose our house and retirement savings.

And I pissed? Damn straight. One of my three adult kids doesn't have insurance. My friends who have been out of work for too long have no insurance. People who might take the plunge into small business ownership don't because they are afraid to leave their job and give up their health insurance. Americans die and suffer needlessly every day because health care in this country has become a trip to the roulette wheel.

The time has come for us to agree that all Americans deserve basic health care coverage - the same for all people in all states. If you want a fancier program with bells and whistles, you can pay extra. The insurance companies have to buck up. When your service is considered a public good - a public necessity - you have to trade in outrageous short-term profits for long-term secure cash flow.

If you have decent health coverage through your job, or your parents' or spouse's job, please stop and think. What would happen to your life if you had to pay 20 - 40% of your income for your insurance? How is that fair?

::wipes spittle from face:: I will rant about the evil doings of health insurance companies - denying coverage that people have paid for - another day.

What do you think about this? Is health care coverage the new rural electrification? Do we have a right to health care?

And now for the last beating of the drum to get Zoe in a Cheerios box:

You only have a day and a half or so to vote!!

1. Go to the voting page.

 

2. In the bottom right corner, click on MORE BOOKS twice. (Yes, this is the tricky part. No, I don't know why Zoe is buried at the absolute back of the pack. Kind of makes you feel sorry for her, huh?) That will take you to ZOE.

3. Click on the yellow box that says VOTE!

4. Notify every person you have ever met in your entire life to PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE. I seriously mean that.

5. Do this every day until 11:59 pm Central Time, October 30. It's almost over and then I will stop grovelling and pleading, I promise!

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I am going to try and steal as much writing time as I can today, so this will be short and sweet.

Want to hang out with me? Meet me at 6pm tomorrow night (10/29) at the Border's in Newark, DE, where I'll be talking about Wintergirls, answering questions, and probably drinking hot tea. 

You can't make it to Delaware? Have no fear. You can watch a live, streaming video of the occasion on the Penguin POV website. You can even send in a question for me to answer.


ZOE UPDATE & FREE FICTION!

Zoe is sad. Her hair droops and drizzles and trails behind her on the sidewalk. Her sad hair picks up fallen leaves and twigs and discarded acorn tops. Zoe's chances of making it inside a Cheerios box are grim; she has been bumped out of the top five. There are a couple of other books in the running that are friends of hers (ALL THE WORLD and  T-REX IN THE LIBRARY), so that makes her feel better. A little better. Not much, honestly.

Zoe's hair snags on a tree root that has broken through the sidewalk. (you have to imagine the artwork, it's too early to wake up Ard and ask him to draw something.)

Zoe stops. Zoe stares.
Her hair twines around the root of the tree.
Zoe turns around. This tree - this magnificent, splendiferous, amazing tree, did not let a little thing like a concrete sidewalk keep it from reaching for the sky.
"We won't either!" Zoe shouts.
Zoe's hair bounces back. It curls, it swirls, it zooms!

Zoe decides that no matter how hard the fight, how high the odds, she will never give up.

You can't give up either. You only have TWO MORE DAYS to vote!! You can put Zoe back in the Cheerios box where she belongs!!

1. Copy and paste the suggestions and voting guidelines below and send them to everyone you know. Post a link to your Twitter. Put it in your Facebook and Myspace status lines. Tweet. Shout. Storm. Spread the news - only two more days to help our favorite redhead!

2. Become a fan of Zoe on Facebook.

3. Go to Zoe's website and play the Hair Basket Game while you are waiting for your friends to write back and thank you for sending them such an excellent suggestion.

AND, OF COURSE, VOTE!!

2. In the bottom right corner, click on MORE BOOKS twice. (Yes, this is the tricky part. No, I don't know why Zoe is buried at the absolute back of the pack. Kind of makes you feel sorry for her, huh?) That will take you to ZOE.

3. Click on the yellow box that says VOTE!

4. Notify every person you have ever met in your entire life to PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE. I seriously mean that.

5. Do this every day until 11:59 pm Central Time, October 30. That is only a few more days!

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THE TERRIBLE NEWS - UPDATE ON THE ZOE VOTE:

For the first time since the contest began, Zoe has been kicked out of the top five! How did this happen?

Micheal Ian Black. He is a comedian, and actor, a Twitterer with over one million followers, and the author of The Purple Kangaroo. He seems nice enough, but man, oh man, is his book putting the big hurt on Zoe: his book has kicked Zoe out of the the top five!!

The top five books in the competition will make it into Cheerios boxes, so Zoe still has a chance, but only if you can spare her a few seconds today and every day through the end of the week.

NOW, FOR THE THE GREAT NEWS

Today's Guest Blogger prefers to remain anonymous, so we'll just call him a Friend of the Forest, which he is, indeed.

He was curious about this program that gets books into boxes of Cheerios, so he did a bit of digging. He wrote the following letter and gave me permission to post it.

"Waking Up with Cheerios

This is an apology to Laurie, Liz Scanlon, and about six million children.

 

Last week, when Scanlon posted here and wished Laurie good luck in the contest, I wrote back to her and said, “I haven’t read your book, but the cover is captivating. Cheerios probably won't be marking what books are in what boxes, so if I don’t get ZOE on my first few tries, I hope I get ALL THE WORLD.”

 

I actually thought I’d be doing a good thing by buying all those boxes.  But, looking back on it now, I was wrong.  I was wrong about a lot of things.

 

First, you can actually see inside the Cheerios boxes.  I haven’t bought cereal for ages, and I didn’t know, but that is a cool way to do it so that kids don’t get two of the same book.  Kudos to Cheerios for that.

 

What really woke me up, though, is when I wondered how exactly these six million books are paid for.  I knew the authors didn’t get royalties, but someone had to pay for the printing, and the Spoonfuls of Stories page didn’t tell me much at all.

 

So I started searching and soon I found this site. 

 

I was blown away – Cheerios has been doing this for eight years and so far has donated 3.2 million dollars of its own money to put 40 million books in their boxes.  How cool is that?

 

I kept reading, and soon I realized the whole point of Spoonfuls of Stories isn’t to promote the books or even Cheerios.  It’s to get books to kids who don’t have books.  In short, I’d missed the entire point.

 

Well, I kept reading and discovered that the ones behind it all are the folks at First Book.  So I went to the

First Book site, and while it’s difficult for many of us to believe that so many children don’t have books of their own, here’s the facts:

 

* A recent study shows that while in middle income neighborhoods the ratio of books per child is 13 to 1, in low-income neighborhoods, the ratio is 1 age-appropriate book for every 300 children.

 

* 80% of preschool and after-school programs serving low-income populations have no age-appropriate books for their children.

 

All of a sudden I felt very small.  Like I’d heard a diner was giving away free books, gone in and grabbed a bunch, and then on the way out happened to look up and see a sign saying it’s a soup kitchen.  Meaning those books just might be these kids’ only chance to get books all year.  Something they can take home, call their own, and read again and again.  Opening up an entire world for them and giving them the skills they need.

 

I’d been thinking of only what I could get, even when I can perfectly afford to buy ZOE and ALL THE WORLD and so give the authors something in return.  And meanwhile here’s countless volunteers at First Book delivering millions of books to children in need.

 

I felt like the biggest schmuck in ALL THE WORLD.

 

So right then I decided to donate to First Book and help promote their work.  And to say yes, root for your favorite authors’ books, and yes, get your vote in each day, ‘cause the contest is still very cool, just now for a much better reason.

 

As Liz Scanlon says in

her own post about the contest, “The book choices are all mighty fine so I'm not worried either way – it's just flat-out goodness for the kids.”

And it’s true.  In the face of what the contest does, it doesn’t matter who wins.  It only matters that First Book continues, and in that everyone can help.

 

One way to do that is to go to The Literacy Site.  I’ve actually been clicking on every tab on that page for years, and never knew till today, when reading down through it, that it’s backed by none other than First Book.

 

Also, if you do pick up a box of Cheerios, another way to help is through the donation form on the side.  An easy way to say thanks for the book and for all the work First Book and Cheerios do.

 

Jon Scieszka sums up their mission well: “From my perspective as an author, a teacher, and a dad, what Cheerios is doing through this Spoonfuls of Stories program is exactly and spectacularly right.”"

Me, again. THANK YOU, Friend of the Forest, for the research and the reminder of what really matters. What matters is that children will have books in their hands, books that are just as important to their growing minds as breakfast is for their growing bodies. It will be fun if my book is included, but the really awesome part is that this program gets books to children and when that happens, we all win.


TOMORROW: I MIGHT HAVE TO ANNOUNCE PLANS THAT I, TOO, WILL BECOME A COMEDIAN AND ACTOR TO ATTRACT ONE MILLION FOLLOWERS ON TWITTER AND BOOST MY CAREER AS A CHILDREN'S AUTHOR.

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Thank you, Queen Louise for doing such a great jump filling in yesterday. (I was off conducting cooking experiments under conditions that sort of simulated the Valley Forge encampment in December 1777.)

Zoe continues to be in the running for inclusion in a million boxes of Cheerios, but there is bad news.

Other books (which are sweet books, lovely books, but still) are surging ahead. ::cues threatening music:: This is not a winner-takes-all competition. The top FIVE books will be put in Cheerios boxes for eager breakfast readers. (For the record, the authors and illustrators will not see any royalties from these cereal books. It's just wicked cool and fun.)

::threatening music again:: Zoe has slipped to fifth place. SHE NEEDS YOUR VOTE. (see below the photos for details)

I mentioned a couple of days ago that authors generally get to see early sketches.

They are just to give everyone a rough sense of the illustrator's ideas.

Don't know if you can see it, but I changed some of my text based on Ard's work.

After the sketches, Ard went back and painted. The author gets to see the early page proofs, too.

One of my favorite things Ard did was to add in a group of gerbils who act like a visual Greek chorus during Zoe's saga.

  (I couldn't figure out how to rotate this photo - sorry!) Originally the cover's background color was white. Then there were MANY discussions at Simon & Schuster. The concern was that less-than-perfectly-clean hands would smudge up the white cover in a hurry. In the end, the powers that be - and Ard, I think - chose the lilac shade.

OK, dear friends. Warm up your clicking finger. Do a couple of jumping jacks. IT'S TIME TO VOTE!!!


HOW TO VOTE:

1. Go to the voting page.

2. In the bottom right corner, click on MORE BOOKS twice. (Yes, this is the tricky part. No, I don't know why Zoe is buried at the absolute back of the pack. Kind of makes you feel sorry for her, huh?) That will take you to ZOE.

3. Click on the yellow box that says VOTE!

4. Notify all of your friends, neighbors, family members, the folks at church or temple or mosque or other house of faith, the rest of the PTA, the people at the firehouse, everyone in your classroom, and tell them all pretty, pretty please with a headful of unruly red hair, PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE.

5. Do this every day until the end of October.




TOMORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY!!! WANT TO GIVE ME A PRESENT? VOTE FOR ZOE TODAY!

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Update on The Zoe Vote:  I, Queen Louise, just voted!  Have you???  When I did, I noticed that our Zoe Girl is still in fourth place, BUT she has 11% of the vote.  Please, Please, Please, after you read Ard Hoyt's comments about making Zoe come to life on the page... VOTE!!!  (the instructions are below for those of you just joining us!)

                                                                                              

Recently, Laurie asked Ard Hoyt, illustrator of THE HAIR OF ZOE FLEEFENBACHER GOES TO SCHOOL, to comment on his experience with Zoe.  He wrote:

        I always knew she was special.  I have a dear friend who also happens to be my 90 year old Grandmother LaPreal.  She and I have kindred spirits and became close when I had the privilege of living with her and Grandpa Wayne for a time during college.  She told me stories about her life with such feeling that I tell you, I felt like I lived it with her.  Thanks to her I got to know my own Grandfather Ard who died before I was born.  Well she is a character and has reddish hair and when I told her I wanted to dedicate a book to her sometime, she asked if I would dedicate a special story with a red headed girl to her.   I waited a long time for Zoe Laurie, and when I read your text I knew that I had found just the book for my special friend. 

Each book that I have worked on has appealed to me emotionally first.  As I read your text again and again thinking about visually telling this story, I could feel Zoe's eagerness to please and her hair's unwillingness to cooperate.  I could almost see that little pensive face on the cover, wondering what those locks were going to do next. 

With that in mind I drew this .... and fell in love with Zoe. 

The rest of the images sprang to life once I knew her.  There was some push back on my original Ms. Trisk who I recall being older with a beehive that was way too expected.  A great catch by our editor Kevin Lewis and designer Jessica Sonkin who both told me to update and modernize her a bit.  I drew feverishly trying to find her but was frustrated until the day I saw a woman in a "power suit" wearing a necktie without a collared shirt and I thought..."ooooo, hello Ms. Trisk."

The wild hair antics were so fun to imagine.  The "Big Mistake" Tyranosaur hair is probably my favorite.

Anyway I had a blast breaking the rules at school with Zoe's Hair.  The story really told itself to me visually and I was proud to bring it to view. 



As Laurie wrote in her note to Ard, "Thank you again a million bazillion times for making our girl so fabulous!!!!" 

And now, the time has come...  for you to VOTE and for me, Queen Louise, to beg, plead and, well, you get the idea.  I can grovel just as good, if not better, than Laurie!  Although, she does do a really good pouty face!  (I won't "pull rank" and order you to vote, either; but it would be nice.)  So here you go.... be sure to share this information with your doctor's office (dentist, too!), your child's boy scout leader, your child's dance instructor...EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

For those of you who are new to our game, here are your voting instructions:

HOW TO VOTE:

1. Go to the voting page.

2. In the bottom right corner, click on MORE BOOKS twice. (Yes, this is the tricky part. No, I don't know why Zoe is buried at the absolute back of the pack. Kind of makes you feel sorry for her, huh?) That will take you to ZOE.

3. Click on the yellow box that says VOTE!

4. Notify all of your friends, neighbors, family members, the folks at church or temple or mosque or other house of faith, the rest of the PTA, the people at the firehouse, everyone in your classroom, and tell them all pretty, pretty please with a headful of unruly red hair, PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE.

5. Do this every day until the end of October.

Tomorrow:  Well, I don't really know. I do have to go to work in the Forest, probably file some paperwork, let the Creature with Fangs out... OH!  That's right, this section isn't about ME; it's about Zoe!  How silly.  I don't really know what Laurie has planned for Zoe tomorrow, but I can bet it will be very interesting.. come back tomorrow and see!  I order Thee.... Read the rest of this post

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Congratulations to everyone whose books made the YALSA Teen Top Ten list for 2009!

Thanks to everyone to came out to see me at SUNY Oswego yesterday! And thanks to those who sent in questions about picture book writing. Let's get to it, shall we?

Do you get to know your picture book characters as well as those in your novels?

I know them on a completely different level, like the way you knew your best friend in second grade.

I would love to know more about how long it takes, from idea to published!

ZOE is my seventh picture book. So far the average time from initial idea to book-on-the-shelf has been four years. ZOE took longer because the story was "resting" in my drawer for several years.

[Today] you said that the illustrator is more important than the author but that the author has no control over the illustrator. That seems stressful. Does that just apply to the beginning of the process? Is there a point at which the author does have some control over the illustrator? How does the illustration process work?

The fact that authors have basically no control over their illustrations freaked me all the way out at first. But I got over it. The truth is that artists bring their own vision to the story and (in my case, at least) it's a much more creative and energetic vision that the author has. In my non-fiction picture books, THANK YOU, SARAH and INDEPENDENT DAMES, I had a little input and was able to share my research with my illustrator, Matt Faulkner. With ZOE, I was sent the early sketches (this is very common) by my editor and was able to have a discussion with the editor about them. There was one tiny reality glitch, I believe, in the spread where the hair is out in the hall while the family has a meeting with the principal. I was able to point that out.

My illustrator, Ard Hoyt, is going to share his side of the ZOE story in this blog tomorrow.


UPDATE ON QUEST TO GET ZOE INTO A BOX OF CHEERIOS:

I'm told that Zoe is holding in at fourth place in the Spoonful of Stories contest. One the intrepid Friends of the Forest dug around and discovered that the author and illustrator of Jump! (the mysterious unpublished book currently in first place) has been making funny YouTube videos to get folks to vote for his book. This is brilliant!

I, sadly, don't have time for videos, so I will resort to old-fashioned groveling and begging.

PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE TODAY AND EVERY DAY UNTIL THE END OF OCTOBER. AND PLEASE GET FIVE FRIENDS TO DO THE SAME THING. ::grovels in a humble and appeasing manner::


For those of you who are new to our game, here are your voting instructions:

HOW TO VOTE:

1. Go to the voting page.

2. In the bottom right corner, click on MORE BOOKS twice. (Yes, this is the tricky part. No, I don't know why Zoe is buried at the absolute back of the pack. Kind of makes you feel sorry for her, huh?) That will take you to ZOE.

3. Click on the yellow box that says VOTE!

4. Notify all of your friends, neighbors, family members, the folks at church or temple or mosque or other house of faith, the rest of the PTA, the people at the firehouse, everyone in your classroom, and tell them all pretty, pretty please with a headful of unruly red hair, PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE.

5. Do this every day until the end of October.

TOMORROW: ARD HOYT TALKS ABOUT ILLUSTRATING ZOE.

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Go ahead and yell at me. I took yesterday off.

We sprinkled my father-in-law's ashes up at our camp on Saturday, near where we put my Mom last month. We had a great family get-together at our house afterward, tears and laughter, bitter and sweet in just the right proportions. And I woke up Sunday with a burning need to spend the entire day in my garden and not touch any computers. Thanks for being understanding.

So.... picture book writing!!!

What follows is my approach to writing picture books.  (Yep, it's all my copyright, but may be reproduced for classroom use.) There are many different variations on this, of course, but I thought guidelines might be useful for some of you.

When I am thinking of a picture book idea, I am always aware of the structural limitations the form imposes:

1. A picture book has 32 pages.

2. This means a picture book has (usually) 16 2-page spreads.

3. Good picture books usually have fewer than 750 words. Fewer than 500 is better.

4. A picture book needs a beginning, a middle, and an end.

5. A picture book has character, conflict, and character growth that is a result of the conflict (Usually!  "Quiet" picture books, sometimes called "mood pieces" (think GOOD-NIGHT MOON) are noticeably short on conflict and character growth. They are also wicked hard to get published.)

6. Picture book writing tends to be short on narrative description. Descriptive details are taken care of in the art.

7. (Warning - biased statement ahead) Picture book stories build the stage upon which great art can be committed. The illustrator is more important than the author.

8. The unfolding of the story must provide the artist with varied settings and perspectives for illustration purposes. No talking heads.

9. Authors have no control over the illustrations of picture books, unless they choose to illustrate them on their own. Don't waste any energy fussing abut this. Focus on your story.

10. Picture book writing is the essence of story structure boiled down to the barest of bones. It's way harder than it looks, and incredibly satisfying.

I was just asked on Twitter if I prefer the novel form or the picture book form. The answer is "Yes." I really like having different forms to work on. I can take as many years tinkering with a picture book as a novel. It may only have a couple hundred words, but they have to be the exact right words in the exact right order! But the subject matter of my picture books tends to be a whole lot lighter than my novels and that is a nice break for my soul.

Your turn - What questions do you have about picture book writing or the writing of THE HAIR OF ZOE FLEEFENBACHER GOES TO SCHOOL?

Update on the Zoe vote. Yes, there is a wee bit of controversy. Isn't there always with voting? The lead book, JUMP!, will not be published until next Spring. Yet it currently has 47% of the vote. ZOE is in fourth place, with 10% of the vote. The rules say that you are only allowed to vote once a day and I am a rule-following kind of kid.

David Lubar points out, "You might want to add that each person can vote once per day from each computer he or she has access to, since the "once per day" limit is linked to the specific computer casting the vote. So, if your public library has 20 computers... (Not that I'm advocating voter fraud, but I was born in NJ, so it's in my blood.)

A couple of people have written and suggested I promote a break-all-the-rules-vote-a-million-times-a-day campaign. Nope, sorry, ain't going to go there. We are talking about getting picture books into boxes of Cheerios, for crying out loud. I would feel forever stained if my picture book was sullied by cereal box fraud.

Please vote once a day. EVERY day until the end of October. And please get five friends to do the same thing.

For those of you who are new to our game, here are your voting instructions:

HOW TO VOTE:

1. Go to the voting page.

2. In the bottom right corner, click on MORE BOOKS twice. (Yes, this is the tricky part. No, I don't know why Zoe is buried at the absolute back of the pack. Kind of makes you feel sorry for her, huh?) That will take you to ZOE.

3. Click on the yellow box that says VOTE!

4. Notify all of your friends, neighbors, family members, the folks at church or temple or mosque or other house of faith, the rest of the PTA, the people at the firehouse, everyone in your classroom, and tell them all pretty, pretty please with a headful of unruly red hair, PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE.

5. Do this every day until the end of October.

TOMORROW: I ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS ABOUT PICTURE BOOKS AND ZOE. THIS MEANS I NEED YOU TO ASK QUESTIONS! SEND THEM TO QUEENLOUISE AT WRITERLADY DOT COM.

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Yesterday's post covered the background and writing process of THE HAIR OF ZOE FLEEFENBACHER GOES TO SCHOOL. It took, um.... years to write the book and have it published. (I point this out to anyone who is just joining the field of children's literature and thinks they have a great picture book idea that will make them eight million dollars in time for Christmas.)

In the critical scene of ZOE, the teacher is trying to demonstrate how the planets in our solar system revolve around the sun. In the early drafts of the book, there were nine planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Then - while Ard Hoyt was working on his preliminary sketches - Pluto was demoted.

Time for another revision!

I thought about making a scientific political statement, like asking Ard to draw in a poster in Ms. Trisk's classroom that said something like "Bring back Pluto!", but wiser heads prevailed.

ZOE STILL NEEDS YOUR HELP AND YOUR DAILY VOTE!!

I'm not quite sure how JUMP! is in the lead in this contest because it is not supposed to be published until March 2010. Maybe Scott M. Fischer knows more people than I do. Maybe he has a secret league of great-aunties who have enlisted all of the women from their bridge clubs and canasta leagues and hair parlors do vote for his book.

Zoe only has you.

YOU can put ZOE in a cheerios cereal box. Here's how:

HOW TO VOTE:

1. Go to the voting page.

2. In the bottom right corner, click on MORE BOOKS twice. (Yes, this is the tricky part. No, I don't know why Zoe is buried at the absolute back of the pack. Kind of makes you feel sorry for her, huh?) That will take you to ZOE.

3. Click on the yellow box that says VOTE!

4. Notify all of your friends, neighbors, family members, the folks at church or temple or mosque or other house of faith, the rest of the PTA, the people at the firehouse, everyone in your classroom, and tell them all pretty, pretty please with a headful of unruly red hair, PLEASE VOTE FOR ZOE.

5. Do this every day until the end of October.

TOMORROW: A LESSON IN PICTURE BOOK WRITING

 

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And now for something completely different.... (with apologies to Monty Python)

For the next two weeks, we here in the Forest are going to take a temporary break from the weighty topics of the day like censorship and the American Revolution. (Fear not, I promise to return to them with renewed vigor after the end of the month!)

For the next two weeks, we are going to talk about, write about, dream about and VOTE FOR ZOE!!!

THE HAIR OF ZOE FLEEFENBACHER GOES TO SCHOOL - which will just be shortened to ZOE for the next two weeks - is a silly, wonderful story about a first grade girl who has hair that can do incredible things... including getting her in trouble. It's a book about the need to honor children for who they are, instead of forcing them to fit into prefabricated boxes. It's also a story about learning how to compromise and why rules are important.

AND... it has illustrations by the amazing Ard Hoyt!

Zoe might wind up inside a box of Cheerios. Actually, if she gets enough votes, ZOE will wind up inside about one million cereal boxes!!! How cool is that? A kid sits down to breakfast and winds up with a book!!!

BUT ZOE NEEDS YOUR HELP!!

There are 13 books competing for the 5 finalist positions. All of the five finalists will wind up in the cereal boxes. You vote once a day for the next two weeks for your favorite five, which I sure as heck hopes includes our girl, ZOE.



I will be blogging all about the writing and publication process of ZOE for the next two weeks. And Ard Hoyt has sent me a note that I'll post explaining what the process was like for him. So the next two weeks at this blog will be one part tutorial in picture book creation, three parts silliness, and seven parts encouraging people to please, please, please vote for Zoe.

I also need help coming up with a fun, outrageous thing to do if ZOE wins. Any suggestions?

TOMORROW: The Idea For Zoe

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