BOOK SIGNING AT THE LA TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS in the SCBWI Booth

Signing books n the SCBWI booth at the LA Times Book Festival.

A week ago, Sunday, April 23rd, I was at the LA Times Festival of Books selling and signing my books in the SCBWI Los Angeles Chapter booth along with other Los Angeles authors who are members of SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.) The festival was held on the USC campus, with dozens of tents lining the walkways and presentations going on in classrooms and on multiple open-air stages. According to the report in the newspaper, it is the largest celebration of books in the United States, with more than 10,000 people attending over the weekend!

I shared my two-hour time slot with two other authors, Micky O'Brady and Brenda Scott Royce, and we had a steady stream of people stopping by to buy books, chat about SCBWI, take a koala tattoo sticker (from Brenda), a gummy butterfly and postcard (from me) or a mint candy (Micky), or to just say hello. While I didn't sell a lot of books, I connected with a lot of people and felt that the outing was worthwhile. When I wasn't in the booth I wandered the aisles browsing new books and enjoying the festive atmosphere.

With many thanks to Robert Mellette, the SCBWI organizing committee, and all the volunteers who helped everything run smoothly.

NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK: VISIT TO THE KONA-KAILUA PUBLIC LIBRARY, HAWAII

Kailua-Kona Public Library, Hawaii

On my recent visit to the Big Island of Hawaii I made my usual visit to the Kona-Kailua Public Library to meet the children’s librarian and donate my recent books. (The state library system has 87 of my books, with 14 in the Kona-Kailua branch.) My husband Art and I have been making trips to Hawaii for a long time—he has a scientific conference held every three years in Kona and I go along for the ride. A visit to the library is always on my agenda. It has been five years since our last visit because the conference was postponed during the Pandemic. So, it was especially nice to return.

A battle car to battle bad guys. By Davy.

I’m always interested to see what kinds of activities the librarians are doing with children and learned that they have a variety of Saturday programs for kids. The librarian pointed out an exhibit of a recent craft/story telling project she had done with young children using Legos. 

A restaurant. By Jamal.

The children were free to create whatever they wanted or if they preferred, they could follow a prompt. When they finished they wrote a short story about their creation or told it to an adult who wrote it for them. I’m sure they were very proud to see their projects displayed near the front of the library for everyone to see and enjoy. The project is a great way to combine playing with a favorite toy—Legos—and practicing story-telling skills. I was impressed by the ingenuity of the projects.

Ant city in Antarctica in the water. By Xander.

 

 

CELEBRATE THE EARTH: AUTHOR VISIT AT ECOLE BILINGUE, Berkeley, CA

Ecole Bilingue School Garden, Berkeley, CA

A week ago on Tuesday I had a terrific visit with the kindergarten, first, and second graders at Ecole Bilingue in Berkeley, California. This was my second visit this year—the first was in March when I presented my book, KEEPER OF THE LIGHT, to the upper grades, a good fit for studies of California history, and in particular, women’s history.

The main focus of my presentation this time was my book PLANTING A GARDEN IN ROOM 6, timed to coordinate with Earth Month and Earth Day. Ecole Bilingue has long had an extensive school garden, including a pair of chickens, who wander freely among the planting boxes. At night and on rainy days they go into a coop where they have nest boxes.

One of the school chickens.

Learning about the plants in the garden and how they grow is part of the school curriculum. The garden also is home to a tortoise. 

Tortoise in the school garden.

Ecole Bilingue is a bilingual school where children learn in both French and English. (I don’t speak French so my presentation was in English.) I have a special connection to EB because my granddaughter Paige was a student there from pre-school through middle school. It is always a pleasure to visit EB and see many of her former teachers and meet the new staff as well. I especially thank Emily Kaltenbach, the English Program coordinator for arranging my visit and making sure that everything ran smoothly. 

Ecole Bilingue, Berkeley, CA.

117th ANNIVERSARY OF THE 1906 SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE

Illustration by Rachell Sumpter for KEEPER OF THE LIGHT.

Today is the 117th anniversary of the deadly 1906 San Francisco earthquake. That morning, across the Bay, on Angel Island, light keeper Juliet Nichols woke up to the violent shaking.

I awake with a jolt. Everything is moving!

My bed thrashes like a boat in a storm. Dishes smash. Outside, the lamp swings wildly on its hook. I hang on for dear life and wish I were not so alone.

When the shaking stops. I inspect the house--

Storehouse cracked. Stone basement badly cracked. House plaster cracked.

--Luckily nothing that can't be fixed.

Juliet's story, before and after the earthquake, is the subject of my book KEEPER OF THE LIGHT: Juliet Fish Nichols Fights the San Francisco Fog (Cameron Kids/Abrams, 2022). Beautiful watercolor llustrations are by Rachell Sumpter. 

The San Francisco Earthquake

At 5:12 a.m., April 18, 1906 a violent earthquake struck the city of San Francisco, toppling buildings, cracking streets and sidewalks, bursting water mains. The rupture extended both northward and southward for a total of 296 miles (476 km). Shaking was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles. No system of measurement was in place at the time, but it is thought today that the earthquake would have measured between 7.9 and 8.2 on the Richter scale.  Hundreds of buildings collapsed during the quake.  But the bigger disaster came from the fires the followed.  Without a water supply, it was difficult to fight the rapidly spreading flames. By the time the fires were out, 500 city blocks were destroyed, at least 700 people were dead, and more than 225,000 homeless.

SAVE THE DATE, SUNDAY APRIL 23, 1-3pm at the LA TIMES BOOK FESTIVAL

I'll be selling and signing books in the SCBWI booth at the LA Times Book Festival on Sunday, April 23 from 1 to 3 pm. If you will be at the festival, please stop by and say hello! 

Here's the Sunday schedule. Hope to see you there! (If you click on the SCBWI link above you can see both the Saturday and Sunday schedules and more info, including all the other authors who will be signing in the SCBWI booth.)

Click here for a map of the USC campus. The SCBWI booth is #826 Child's Way.

AUTHOR VISIT AT ECHO HORIZON SCHOOL, Culver City, CA

With librarian Claudette Brown at Echo Horizon School

I had a great time last Monday with the first and second graders at Echo Horizon School in Culver City. California. Many thanks to librarian, Claudette Brown for inviting me and for preparing the students for my visit. I loved their imaginary creatures inspired by my Hodag book! Each student had created their animal using the activity sheet downloadable from my website.

The children were very responsive to my presentation, asking lots of questions and answering mine. I was impressed that they all knew the terms “diurnal” and “nocturnal” when I showed them my Day and Night books.

I thank Children’s Book World for making my books available for purchase and signing. On my way to the school I picked up the books that had been ordered and signed them so that they could be delivered to the students after my talk.

As a bonus to my visit I happened upon a caterpillar on my way into school. (It was crawling along the sidewalk.) I picked it up, put it in a jar,  and shared it with the children—a perfect supplement to talking about my book Butterflies in Room 6. I brought it home where it has since made a chrysalis. Over the next two weeks it will metamorphosize and become a beautiful Mourning Cloak butterfly.

Mourning Cloak butterfly

CELEBRATE THE EARTH at the April SCBWI Reading List with BUTTERFLIES IN ROOM 6

BUTTERFLIES IN ROOM 6 is one of the books featured on the SCBWI reading list for the month of April. Hurray! The April theme is "Celebrate the Earth". What better way to celebrate the Earth than by watching caterpillars transform into beautiful butterflies!

You can find my book by looking in the nonfiction section of the reading list. 

ZOOM AUTHOR VISIT AT LINCOLN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, GLENDALE, CA

Zoom presentation to the Lincoln Lions, Glendale, CA

On Monday, March 27, 2023, I had an excellent Zoom author visit at Lincoln Elementary School in Glendale, California. The school mascot is the lion. The visit was part of the Authors and Illustrators in the Schools program sponsored and organized by the Glendale Assistance League. I especially thank Linelle Vincenti and Kathy Blyth for all their support and making sure that everything ran smoothly. I was one of four authors visiting classrooms at Lincoln School. I met with four groups of first and second graders, each class for about thirty minutes, sharing my books and my life as an author and answering questions from the students. I enjoyed it immensely. And I could tell that the teachers and kids enjoyed it too.

We talked about birds and I shared my collection of eggs—from tiny zebra finch eggs to my giant ostrich egg and related them to the story in my book HATCHING CHICKS IN ROOM 6. We also discussed feathers and bird flight, measuring wingspans from a hummingbird to a bald eagle.

Ostrich egg.

Another theme of my presentation was gardens–featuring my recent book PLANTING A GARDEN IN ROOM 6: From Seeds to Salad, as well as my fiction book WIGGLE AND WAGGLE (reading the first story and singing the gardening song with my Wiggle and Waggle sock puppets), and sharing my miniature model garden inspired by Mr. McGregor’s garden in PETER RABBIT by Beatrix Potter. I was pleased to discover that each class had been given a copy of PLANTING A GARDEN IN ROOM 6 by the Glendale Assistance League.

I also talked about how authors get ideas for books, sharing that the inspiration for KEEPER OF THE LIGHT came out of a visit to Angel Island in San Francisco Bay. And I showed how I create the cut-paper illustrations for my books, using A ZEBRA’S WORLD as an example. We packed a lot into the thirty-plus minutes of each presentation. Altogether it was a fun and successful day.