Saturday at Midwinter was a happy day for Maud Hart Lovelace fangirls like me…HarperPerennial hosted a booksigning, giving away tote bags and copies of Carney’s House Party and Emily of Deep Valley to a crowd of happy conference-goers. Mitali Perkins and I signed our forewords in the gorgeous reissues, and I loved getting to meet so many fellow Betsy Ray devotees, including several lovely women I know from the Maud-L discussion list.
With Maud-L listren Nancy D. and Kathleen W., a happy meeting!
The lovely Mitali Perkins
Me, HarperPerennial’s Jennifer Hart, and Mitali Perkins
Delightful lunch company. All of us are card-carrying members of the Betsy Tacy Society. (Well, I guess baby Lucy isn’t carrying a card…yet.)
It’s great fun to have ALA Midwinter happening in our own back yard this year! I’m looking forward to seeing a number of publishing pals and kidlitosphere chums this weekend. I’ll be at the YA Blogger meetup on Friday night (details here), and on Saturday I’ll be at the HarperPerennial booth (#2016) with acclaimed author Mitali Perkins from 11:30-12:30, where we’ll be—as Mitali aptly put it—reverently signing our forewords for the beautiful reissues of Maud Hart Lovelace’s Emily of Deep Valley and Carney’s House Party/Winona’s Pony Cart.
If you’re attending the conference, I hope you’ll stop by and say hello!
While I’m at it, this is a good time to mention that I spilled a little bit of news on my Facebook author page yesterday. 🙂 I’m very happy to say that my early reader, Fox and Crow Are Not Friends, will be published by Random House in 2012. I’ve been bursting to tell for quite some time, but we had to wait until things were all official and tidy-like.
I also have a YA novel in the works—more on that in the weeks to come!
Hot off the presses! The Betsy-Tacy Songbook is now available at Willard’s Emporium!
Join Betsy Ray and her Crowd as they gather around the piano and sing the popular hits of their day.
The Maud Hart Lovelace Society has lovingly and painstakingly researched the songs mentioned (and sung, and danced to) in the Betsy-Tacy books and assembled a “greatest hits” list of songs for your musical enjoyment.
The book is 212 pages long, spiral bound in green, and contains 40 songs mentioned in the Betsy-Tacy books, with scanned original vintage copies of the sheet music covers and the sheet music itself. There is information about each song and where it appears in the Betsy-Tacy books, as well as biographical information about two of the musical stars of Betsy’s day, Chauncey Olcott and Joe E. Howard.
That was so much fun! Thanks to everyone who called or wrote in with questions. Here’s the podcast for those of you who couldn’t listen live. And don’t miss BookClubGirl’s follow-up post, which is chock-full of links and notes about the things we discussed.
You can even call in and ask questions. I am really hoping you will call! From Jennifer:
Be sure to register on the site before 7 on Monday so that you can participate in the chat from the beginning. You can also call in and ask questions directly by dialing 347-945-6149 during the show.
(Although actually there is a right way to dress for radio, or a wrong way at least. On my first radio interview ever, back in 1998—this was before internet radio, so I mean radio-radio in a radio station—I happened to be wearing a bead necklace and when I leaned forward, the beads clickety-clacked against my mic and made a horrible racket. Fortunately we weren’t live. They had me take off the necklace and redo that part of the interview. So note to self: no beads tomorrow. Hahaha. As if any necklace could survive the grabbyhands of Huck.)
(And after KidlitCon, the incomparable Kathy Baxter is treating me to a visit to Mankato, stomping grounds of Maud Hart Lovelace, and maybe, possibly, if we can work out the logistics, Walnut Grove as well! Plus? I get to spend the night with Margaret and family.)
November 20th, 3pm—this one’s for San Diego locals. Betsy-Tacy Re-Release Party at Reader’s Inc bookstore in La Mesa, CA. Come see me!
January 8th—ALA Midwinter here in San Diego. Mitali Perkins and I will be signing books at the HarperPerennial booth.
Plus also? I’ve been holding onto some booksy news which I’ll have leave to announce very soon. Did I mention I got back to work last spring? After a longish hiatus following our move here? I’ve got some exciting (to me at least) things bubbling and can’t wait to be able to tell you all about them.
The Foreword, by Melissa Wiley, looks at character development and assesses how Wiley herself has been impacted by these books. She says that she hopes her daughters “will become … the heroines of their own lives, facing life’s challenges with Carney’s integrity, Betsy’s determination, and Winona’s sense of fun.”
