We picture-book writers like things that come in three's. We even have a fancy technical term for it: The Rule Of Three. See how technically fancy we are? Ha!

But anyway, my book Hush, Little Dragon completed something of a hat-trick today to my delight (see- we children's writers are just like hockey players- how cool are we?! They like three's too...)

Up until now, I had two favorite reviews of Hush. The first one was by Regan McMahon of The San Francisco Chronicle who, my faithful readers and BFF's will remember, called it "Sweeney Todd for the sandbox set." That's my future epitaph, by the way, for anyone making those sort of plans for me now. Nothing will likely top that in my career, just so you know. Lovedlovedloved it.

The second one came from Gracie over at Bookie Woogie. She enthused that Hush was "a funny, cute, little, horrifying book" and she illustrated Kelly Murphy and I being presented to Baby Dragon as his next meal. Brought tears of laughter to my eyes- wonderful.


But I like things to come in three's... and now I have a third favorite review (and I should of course clarify that there have been tons of other very favorable reviews that I have so very much appreciated and I don't mean to slight those reviewers at ALL, I just wanted a fancy twist for a blog post and that's what I came up with at 10:00 at night)! Where was I?

Oh, yeah, Tara Lazar's, uh, review today of Hush, Little Dragon. Freaking Hilarious. Laughed so hard I couldn't breathe! Oh Tara, thank you, and I do mean thank you, for the uniquest review I think Hush will ever receive. (Stick with prose, dear, stick with prose...)

:)

So, this book just shot to the tippy-top of my To Read The Minute It Comes Out list:


I love the way Amy Krouse Rosenthal looks at the world. Always an interesting perspective from her. Little Hoot, Spoon and It's Not Fair have all been very popular books in our house.

And if you aren't familiar with Paul Schmid's work yet, head on over to his site and check him out. Incredibly talented guy who is going places in children's books.

And they're in tandem on the same book? A book that sounds like that? Yeah, I can't wait either!

:)

It took me a long time to truly understand and be able to write well in rhyme. A long time. Let me say that again, for emphasis.

A long time.

In the end, I found reading really good rhyme over and over and over to be the best way to drill how-to-rhyme into my brain.

If you happen to be in the learning-to-rhyme stage, or know someone who is, I suggest you go find a copy of this book (and by "find", here, I mean "buy", because you are going to want to spend some time with this book)(in fact, I'll make it easy for you- here's the link to go buy it on indiebound):



Fantastic book. A great read-aloud with fun phrases that just trip off your tongue and make everyone within earshot want to come over and see what all the fuss is about. Great narrative arc, terrific voice, a breeze to read. This is how to write rhyme, right here, in this book. Plus, it has fab illustrations- an all-around fun book to discover.

:)

p.s. A small note: I don't know Linda Ashman, but she is one of the authors I studied when I was trying to learn rhyme. Her writing is so lovely and her body of work has such variety and depth, making it a great one to study. And I'll admit, one of the small joys in my journey to being a published author was the realization that on some bookshelves, in libraries and bookstores where alphabetization is a way of life, my books would eventually be very close to hers. In some places, next TO her books. And THAT is a very good thing :)

I wrote Over At The Castle on Christmas Eve, 2005.

I sold it in September, 2006.

It's up for pre-order now on indiebound!

And on Amazon!

But not B&N yet.

Enh, they've got time. Four months and 10 days and counting....

:)

The best-laid writing plans can be foiled by such small things.

Like a forgotten dentist appointment.

Or a call from the school's office saying your child doesn't feel well, can you please come pick him up?

Or writer's block/uncertainty/paralysis.

Or all of the above.

Ugh.

I'm writing a chapter book. I may have said this before, because I've started them before. I even wrote one way back when I started writing. It's "in the drawer" now. It's hilarious, but it's not very good. And I wrote it before I'd even read very many of them, so I didn't really understand the genre.

But I decided this summer, when I had an idea that I knew was good, to spend some time studying chapter books and I think I understand them better now. Not as well as I understand picture books, but getting there. And I made a few false starts this fall- I think I totally re-wrote Chapter One like four times. But yesterday (the fifth time- ha!), I finally wrote a Chapter One that I think will work. It'll get revised and re-tweaked and maybe even re-written again at some point, but I think I'm on the right path.

However, today I discovered why I *LOVE* writing picture books (yes, I discovered it while writing a chapter book- I already know how crazy I am, you don't have to point it out). Yesterday, I felt a HUGE sense of accomplishment seeing that not-bad Chapter One all done and saved on my computer. I loved that. But today? I have to write Chapter TWO! Nobody warned me about this. No more sense of accomplishment, a new blank page... this is crazy. Who does this??

Sigh.

If you follow Mo Willems' blog, you know that his family does a really cool thing in their dining room. The walls are chalkboards and they do grand, themed Group Draws where the whole family contributes to the mural. And, well, they have a serious leg up in the talent department, don't they?!

My husband would have a heart attack over the chalkdust mess, so we have a more contained, smaller-scale version at our house. There are only two rules: you can draw anything you want, and no one is allowed to criticize or erase anyone else's contributions.

I think the Willems' family all joins in on the planning of theirs, but we don't. For the one below, I just drew the wavy blue line through the middle of the board and people started adding from there. Additions are usually made covertly, when no one is looking, so it's fun to wander by the board and spot new things. Once we think we've exhausted a theme, or we're just tired of it, we wipe it clean and start over. We just started a spooky, graveyard theme which ought to be done in time for Halloween, but here was our end-of-summer Ocean World:



I know this doesn't have much to do with writing children's books (exactly), but the process does encourage brainstorming and story-telling with pictures. It's also making my kids more comfortable sharing their artwork with other people (something I was never comfortable with as a child) and developing their self-confidence in it. I love that it gives me a tiny peek into the ways their minds work- they have added so many things I never would have thought of! And I love that we are creating something together. Very fun!

:)

My new cover, although very cool, is not the only cool thing that happened this week. Two other things happened that reminded me how grateful I am that writing is a part of my life.

One: welcome First Ballet to the bookshelf!


My critique partner's debut picture book! This is the first book, besides my own, that I was lucky enough to see before it became a real book. I even helped her with it a little bit. Call me its very proud aunt :) When she wrote it, I just knew it would be her breakthrough manuscript. It's simple and beautiful, and elegant, and a lovely tribute to the world of ballet. And it has a glittery cover that you can't see in the picture! I am so happy she is joining the bookshelf :) Yay Deanna!!

Two: today I got to hang with another writer friend of mine- Ruth McNally Barshaw. She's the author/illustrator of these two fabulous books-



and she's up here in the UP doing author-y stuff. I got to see her school presentation today and watch in awe as she just whips out drawing after drawing after drawing... She's so talented. And comfortable speaking and funny and and... wow. I learned so much watching her and SO did the kids.

Ruth's books are in a sketch-journal format, like the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid series, or Dork Diaries, which makes them ridiculously fun to read. And Ruth doesn't just confine her sketch-journaling to her published books- she does it all the time. Check out her sketchbook page on her website (but only if you have some time to spend there because seriously, you will spend TIME there). She even sketched me while we were chatting in the bookstore/coffeeshop- and she made me look good-ha! But she's also witty and charming and we had a lovely time book-talking which, if you can imagine, I love to do. Thank you, Ruth!! And come back soon :)

Wait a minute.

Nobody told me about this book. What on earth is wrong with the world when a Gravett book comes out, and looks like THIS, and I don't even know anything about it?! Where was the sweet anticipation? Where was the wishful drooling? I've been robbed, I tell you.



Apparently, I've been too busy navel-gazing! Well, THAT has got to stop. I'm on my way to the bookstore. Geesh.

:)

The cover of my next book- coming spring, 2010! Yay!

I nominated books. Did you nominate books? Show some book love!

My fiction picture book choice:

Such a lovely interplay between text and pictures- the true test of a terrific picture book. And Shutta's poetic narration really reinvents the experience of a thunderstorm for the listener- so hard to do with an "everyday" experience, but so admirable when done well. An all-around fabulous book.

My non-fiction picture book choice was already taken by the time I got there- darn you, Jen Robinson! I had wanted to nominate You Never Heard Of Sandy Koufax? by Jonah Winter, but had to settle on my second favorite-


The voice in both books is phenomenal, so I'm okay with either one winning. However, something by Jonah Winter MUST win. I'm just saying...

I also showed some love for this book in the easy reader category (although not my forte, I felt reasonably confident with my knowledge in the area):


Terrific easy reader with exciting illustrations- can't wait for the sequel :)
And I drew on my son Jack's expertise to pick one for the graphic novel/elementary category:


It was a hard call on that one- he had several favorites this year (boy, never thought we'd have THAT problem with him!! Yay for graphic novels!!), but I would say this one was the book that turned him toward being interested in reading- finally. And that says it all, doesn't it??

As you probably know, I have so many favorite books, it was a really hard choice all the way down the line. Lots of my other favorites have also been nominated fortunately, so I don't feel too much like I played favorites- I hope no one I know does either ;)

So go show some book love- nominate a favorite!

This week, my book addiction has been enabled by several and varied parties. To whit:



Look what I bought from the lovely Word Books in Brooklyn! I'm following them on twitter because they highlight some lovely books (and I wish I lived in NY!) and after one such lovely tweet, I excitedly twittered right back that I wished I lived in Brooklyn and could walk into their store the next day and purchase all three (they were books I had been looking forward to already). The savvy Word tweeter shot right back with, "We deliver." Ha! I love a quick mind. So yessiree, I put my money where my big, loud mouth is and bought them. Word was awesome to deal with and I am now the proud owner of Princess Hyacinth there, Who Wants To Be A Poodle I Don't by Lauren Child and Something To Do by David Lucas. And the pretty little bow eradicated any last twinges of buyer's remorse. Word!


It came! I won this adorable mid-grade book from brimeetsbooks.com in a fun contest last week. Forecast is a rainy, cold weekend- just right for reading a good book :)



So, twitter? Going to be the end of me! The Red Balloon Bookshop is another great indie I found there. They're a little closer to home- they're down in St.Paul- so I might actually manage a stop in there next year. In the meantime, I visited their website looking for one book and found two others that I had to have more (don't worry, I'm sure I'll buy that other one eventually). Also, I must say, easiest time ever buying books online from an indie. Way to go, Red Balloon! And I KNOW my son Jack is going to love both of these, so not one twinge of guilt. Seriously!

(But, honestly, do you think I just might have a teeny, tiny problem here...?)

(I hope my husband doesn't see this post.)

:)