FREE BOOK! My Friend from Outer Space--HALLOWEEN SPECIAL!

HALLOWEEN SPECIAL!

MY FRIEND FROM OUTER SPACE

FREE BOOK!   5 DAYS ONLY (Oct 27—31)

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Does Sherry really come from outer space, or is she just wearing her Halloween costume? Read the book. Then you decide.

Happy Halloween!

2023 CLCSC AWARDS CEREMONY: Celebrating Books and Reading for Children

Book signing at the CLCSC Award Ceremony

On Saturday, October 21, 2023, the Children’s Literature Council of Southern California (CLCSC) held their annual awards ceremony at the Luminarias restaurant in Monterey Park, California. Winners this year included Marie Arnold (no relation), Joe Cepeda, Nikki High, Rex Ogle, and Benson Shum, honored for their contributions to the Kid Lit community.

After eating a delicious brunch, each of the honorees gave a five-minute talk telling about themselves and their books. Then, all of the authors and illustrators signed books (available for purchase at the event from Once Upon a Time Books.) 

With past awardees and our plaques.

As a past winner (2020) during the pandemic, when the ceremony was held online, I and other past winners were invited as special guests to be available to sign our books in person and to have our photos taken with our winners plaques. Attendees at the event also had a chance to bid on baskets of books at a silent auction.

It was a pleasure to be back in person at this annual event and to reconnect with the librarians and teachers who are members of CLCSC. I was also glad to have the chance to chat with the other authors who were there. With many thanks to everyone on the CLCSC board and award committee for a very enjoyable morning and for continuing to be champions of books and reading for today’s children. 

AUTHOR VISIT at MOUNTAIN AVENUE SCHOOL, Glendale, CA

Mountain Avenue School, Glendale, California

On Tuesday, October 17th, I had a wonderful day at Mountain Avenue school in Glendale, California. The day was sponsored by the Glendale Assistance League, who not only brought in the authors for the day and gave each teacher a copy of one of our books, but also gave a generous check to the school for the purchase of books for the library. I was one of four authors--Frans Vischer, Larissa Theule, and Tracy Holczer. We visited classrooms (I gave presentations to the first and second graders) and signed books at the after-school book sale in the auditorium.

It was so nice to be back in the classroom in person (after several years on Zoom), and I was pleased by the enthusiastic response to my presentation by the students and teachers. They especially liked my new book My Friend From Outer Space. Several of the classrooms had already planted seeds in the school garden--inspired in part by my book Planting a Garden in Room 6.

School garden, with planting boxes covered with screens to keep out pests.

Special thanks go to Linelle Vicenti for coordinating everything and making sure the day ran smoothly! I also thank Kathy Blyth and all the Glendale Assistance League volunteers who introduced me, helped out at the book sale, and brought the delicious snacks and lunch. Many thanks to the Glendale Assistance League for another successful Authors and Illustrators Day!.

SUN FUN: WATCHING A SOLAR ECLIPSE (safely)

Image of Eclipse through a pinhole. Illustration by Caroline Arnold in Sun Fun.

No "ring of fire" but lots of crescent shaped suns as the partial eclipse passed over Los Angeles yesterday! Any tiny opening (between leaves on the trees or poked in a piece of paper) became a pinhole camera projecting the sun's image.)

Shadows of leaves on a sidewalk create images of partially obscured sun. 

On Saturday morning, October 14, 2023, I and millions of other people experienced an annular eclipse when the moon passes in front of the sun, leaving a thin edge of the sun peeking out behind it. A full annular eclipse looks like a ring of fire. In Los Angeles, where I live, we did not see the full eclipse, but we did see a partial eclipse.

It is never safe to look at the sun directly. Here's how you can experience an eclipse safely. This project is in my book Sun Fun, originally published in 1981 by Franklin Watts, and now available as an e-book on Amazon.

REMEMBERING EVE BUNTING: My Friend, My Mentor, My Role Model

Eve Bunting, 2017. Santa Cruz, CA

More than forty years ago I was invited to a party to celebrate the publication of Eve Bunting’s 100^th book. I was in awe. How could anyone write, much less publish, one hundred books! Eve kept writing, surpassing 250 books and winning countless awards. Last week, at age 94, Eve passed away. Her first book, published in 1971, was The Two Giants, an Irish tale. She is a giant among today’s children book writers and will be sorely missed.

I first met Eve Bunting in 1977 when I heard her speak at the summer conference of the Society of Children’s Book Writers—SCBW—at the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica. (The “I” for illustrators was added some years later.) Eve was already a prolific author and as she spoke in her lilting Irish accent, I said to myself, if she ever teaches a class in the Writer’s Program at UCLA Extension, I will take it. The following spring, her class in writing middle grade fiction was offered, and I signed up, along with twenty other fledgling writers. Week after week we each brought chapters of our novels to class. Eve read them aloud and we learned about voice, point of view, setting, character and all the elements necessary to write a compelling story. But probably the most important advice she passed along was the role of a writing group. She often mentioned her own writing group, Lunch Bunch, which had grown out of the writing class she took as a beginning writer. So, like Eve and her classmates had done, at the end of our ten-week class, we formed our own group. We met once a month thereafter, critiquing one another’s writing, sharing news, and soon celebrating our own publishing successes.

It was in Eve’s class that I met Herma Silverstein. (Herma and I subsequently collaborated on two books and she also published a number of her own.) For many years, Herma, Eve and I celebrated our birthdays together, exchanging small gifts, eating lunch at a nice restaurant and then going shopping. I don’t remember how this tradition started, but Eve always liked to go out to eat and  loved to shop, especially if we could find bargains! Eve’s birthday is December 19^th, and I have many fond memories of arriving at her house in Pasadena all decorated for Christmas, before we went out for our birthday lunch. Eve’s husband Ed, after he retired, was always there with a smiling face to greet us at the door. At our lunches Eve would always share her newest books and publishing news and be eager to hear ours. After Herma moved to Palm Desert, we met less often, but Eve and I did go on an expedition together to see her new house and go out to lunch there. (Herma passed away several years ago.)

The last time I saw Eve in person was in 2017 after she moved to Santa Cruz to be closer to her daughter. It was on a day trip to Santa Cruz from Oakland with my friend and fellow writer Joanne Rocklin. (Joanne had also been a student in one of Eve’s UCLA classes.) Not surprisingly, Eve had some new books to show us. Again, we went out to lunch, but instead of going shopping afterward, we took a walk along the ocean cliffs on the path that began just outside the door of Eve’s house. 

During the Pandemic it was not possible to visit in person, but Eve and I kept in touch by email. In my last email from her, when she was 93, and recently moved to a retirement community, she wrote:

I am well.  I enjoy where I am and know how lucky I am to find such a place.  I’m not writing.  ...  My last little PB has done well. “Hello, Baby, I’m your Mom.”  So who knows…maybe I’ll do another!

Love, Eve

I don’t believe that Eve wrote another picture book since that email. But I wouldn’t be surprised to hear she that she is coming up with new story ideas up in Heaven!

Eve was my friend, my hero, my role model. I will miss her.

Caroline, Herma, Eve, 1995.

Note: Eve's many accomplishments are highlighted in this article from Kirkus Reviews.

A longer obituary appeared in Publisher's Weekly.

THEN AND NOW: Revisiting a Childhood Book, Summer Outing

Caroline (age 4) and her brother Steve (10 mos.)

More than half a century ago, when I was four years old, my parents took a photo of me holding a book called Summer Outing. Next to me is my younger brother Steve. We were on a visit to the family farm in Ohio where my grandfather had grown up. I have no recollection of reading that book, but I have used the photo for many years in my author visit slide show at schools and libraries to illustrate my love for books as a young child.

Caroline with Summer Outing, 2023

Recently I decided to search online for Summer Outing and discovered a copy for sale at a used book supplier in Arkansas. I ordered the book and when it arrived, found that it had been published in 1902! The book is a bit worse for wear and one of its previous owners, Helene, has written her name in school girl script on the first page. She, or perhaps someone else, has colored in some of the drawings with crayons. But otherwise, the book is intact. 

Illustrated with black and white line drawings, it is a collection of poems and moralistic tales aimed at “young people”-- stories about Captain Bob (the boy who went fishing without telling his family), Spitz (a dog) and the Geese, The Disappointed Kitty (who didn’t catch the mouse), a poem about polliwogs, and many more. The stories are a window onto childhood a long time ago.

Inside pages of Summer Outing, published by Homewood Publishing Company, Chicago, 1902

In 1902, my grandfather, the oldest of six children, had already left the farm  to make a life for himself in Chicago, so perhaps the book had been purchased for his younger siblings. I will never know. But the fact that it had been kept for nearly fifty years shows that the family valued books. That love for books and reading was passed on to my grandfather, my father, and to me.

Books have always been an important part of my life.  My parents read to me when I was small, took me to the library, and when I got older I learned to read by myself. Summer Outing looks old-fashioned today and the text is antiquated, but I am glad that I have rediscovered it. 

Polliwogs

The cat-tails all along the brook are growing tall and green;

And in the meadow-pool, once more, the polliwogs are seen;

Among the duck-weed, in and out,

As quick as thought they dart about.

“Be patient, little polliwogs,

And by and by you’ll turn to frogs.”