Happy New Year, friends! I hope you’re finding moments of peace and joy even amid all that our first weeks of 2026 have brought. My go-to strategy for taking care of my mental health in times like this is walking in nature, always. In case you haven’t been able to get out lately, I’m sharing a photo from a recent birding hike in the Eastern Everglades.

Pre-order CAMP MONSTER now
(and get your very own Camp Monster baseball cap!)

Our graphic novel CAMP MONSTER comes out in just a few weeks! This is my very first graphic novel, illustrated by Falynn Koch. I love it so much, and I hope you’ll consider pre-ordering your copy from your favorite local bookstore. If you do that – and you’re one of the first 500 people to send Bloomsbury your receipt – you’ll get a free CAMP MONSTER baseball cap as a pre-order gift! The hat is seriously cute, so you’ll want to jump on this offer to make sure you’re one of the first 500 orders!

The book comes out February 3rd (hats will ship a little later) so it would make a pretty sweet Valentine’s Day gift for your favorite little monster. 

Even if you can’t pre-order right away and aren’t one of the first 500 to send in your receipt to get a cap  – if you order before February 3rd, you’ll get a limited edition CAMP MONSTER sticker sheet, which is also pretty great. Here’s all the info and a link to preorder now.

It’s time to sign up for Your January Virtual Author Visit!

If you haven’t already signed up for my January virtual author visit, don’t worry – there’s still space for your readers to join us! I’ll be Zooming with readers at 1pm EST on January 29th to offer a peek behind the scenes at my upcoming graphic novel CAMP MONSTER, illustrated by Falynn Koch. Falynn will join us on video to share a look at her illustration process as well, and I’ll also lead kids in a mini writing workshop to create their own characters for Camp Monster. We’ll wrap up with live Q&A. It’s going to be so much fun! There will be ASL interpreting provided, as well as a recording, which all registrants will get via email 24 hours after the webinar ends. Here’s how to sign up! 

In other news…

OVER AND UNDER THE CORAL REEF is a finalist for the SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Picture Book Nonfiction – AND it’s been named to the 2026 Texas Topaz reading list! This is book eight in our nature series that launched with OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW fifteen years ago. As soon as I sent that first Over & Under book to my agent, she warned me that it was a quiet story – loud, flashy picture books were popular at the time – but she believed in it. My editor at Chronicle Books believed, too. And then so did all of you. So many readers have shared this series over the years, and I’m beyond grateful. So thank you. 

I’m headed to Nashville for a school visit this week and from there, I’ll be off to New York for the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators Conference. I’m leading a craft workshop called Nonfiction Glow Up, and I couldn’t be more excited to work with writers! We’re going to look at some of the most amazing recent informational picture books and what makes them work. Every time I teach a workshop like this, I learn so much from my colleagues’ books as I’m preparing. We’re going to have a great conversation, and I hope to see some of you there! 

That’s all for today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of January. Take care of yourself, and I hope to see you and your readers at our virtual author visit on the 29th!