Children’s Book Authors at the California Reading Association Conference

October 21, 2012 @ 3:12 pm | Filed under: Author stuff, Books, Events

Such fun visiting with lots of authors, teachers, and librarians at this weekend’s California Reading Association Professional Development Institute! Here are some of the lovely authors I spent the day with:

With Edith Hope Fine, Judith Josephson, and Lori Mitchell, some of my SCBWI author pals.

The awesome Cindy Pon.

Of course Edith, Judith, and I insisted on a photo with Betty Birney, author of the Humphrey novels, The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs, and a zillion other books.

I had the fun of sitting next to Shelley Moore Thomas, who writes the delightful Good Knight early reader series. Her new middle-grade novel, The Seven Tales of Trinket, sounds extremely enticing. Nested stories, Celtic lore: yeah, she had me at hello.

Farther down the table was Amanda Noll—unfortunately I flubbed my photo of her, so you get her book cover instead. Doesn’t it just GRAB you? Looking forward to enjoying this one with my small fry.

My photo of Barrie Summy came out blurry too. I loved getting to know her and I love these book titles!

These guys were charming and I’ll be writing more about them for GeekMom: Adam Glendon Sidwell and his brother Jarom. Cool animation background, a ton of creative ideas for teaching story structure to kids, and a book called Evertaster. (Speaking of amazing covers.)

The SCBWI gang. Andrea Zimmerman (author of many books including a Huck favorite, Trashy Town), Judith, Edith, me, Erin Dealey (author of, among other books, the supercute Little Bo Peep Can’t Get to Sleep—this one has Rillabook written all over it, and the art is so cute I’m tempted to buy a second copy for print-framing), Suzanne Santillan (author of Grandma’s Pear Tree, a really lovely picture book), and Shelley.

Same group, except Andrea has left and we’ve added the great Milly Lee!

Here’s my corner of the table. 🙂 Fox and Crow missed the photo op! It sold out before I remembered to get a picture. Speaking of photo ops, I love the Betty Birney/Erin Dealey picture happening behind me.

Many thanks to the fine folks of the California Reading Association for having us, and thanks to The Yellow Book Road children’s bookstore for stocking our books!

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Tags: Adam Sidwell, Amanda Noll, Andrea Zimmerman, author events, Barrie Summey, Betty Birney, Cindy Pon, CRA, Edith Hope Fine, Erin Dealey, Jarom Sidwell, Judith Josephson, Milly Lee, Shelley Moore Thomas, Suzanne Santillan

Friday Snippets

March 25, 2011 @ 4:51 pm | Filed under: Books, Picture Book Spotlight

Over at the RIF blog, Carol Rasco reminds us that it’s cherry-blossom season, rather a bittersweet time this year with all Japan is suffering. There’s a new book out by Andrea Zimmerman I’m keen to read, about Eliza Scidmore, the woman responsible for bringing the cherry trees to Washington, DC: Eliza’s Cherry Trees: Japan’s Gift to America (illustrated by Ju-Hong Chen). I spent quite a bit of time in DC during my college years and I have marveled at those lovely pink avenues in spring.

Your comments on last week’s Rillabooks posts have greatly informed our library list this week: thanks to you, we’ve enjoyed Not a Stick, Mr. Bear Squash-You-All-Flat (a whimsical retro delight), and Cowboy & Octopus. About that latter: Rilla and I read it together curled up in my bed. When I got to the bit where Cowboy tells Octopus what he truly thinks of Octopus’s hat—his opinion is a wee bit scatological, you understand—I heard a peal of laughter from down the hall. Seems Rose and Beanie had been listening in all the way from their room. I think you know a book’s a success when it sucks in an audience from rooms away.

(Thank you to Joann, Cate, and Ellie for the suggestions!)

Other Rilla-reading:
• My Naughty Little Sister, chapter 1 (thanks, Kathryn)
• Scott finished reading her My Father’s Dragon
• Grumpy Bird several more times