World Read Aloud Day Round-Up!

Did you read aloud to someone today?  It was World Read Aloud Day, you know...an international event put together by LitWorld…and oh, what a day!

A few weeks ago, Karla Duff, a teacher in Iowa, sent me a note on Twitter asking if I’d be game to read aloud to her students via Skype for the big day.  Later on, I noticed other teachers on Twitter were looking for authors to read-aloud, too – and since I wear two hats — teacher and writer — it was easy for me to help with that and make some introductions.  The result… a list of more than thirty authors who’d volunteered their time for Skype read-alouds to celebrate World Read Aloud Day! And boy, did teachers ever take them up on that offer!

Because today was a teaching day for me, too, I shared some video read-alouds of my new & upcoming books online (you can still see them here!) and did one Skype chat during my lunch hour.

Karla’s school was delayed due to ice & snow, so I posted a quick note on Twitter, and Katherine Sokolowski swooped in to claim the Skype visit for her 5th grade reading class.  I showed the kids my new book SUGAR AND ICE as well as my upcoming spring/summer releases, MARTY MCGUIRE and SEAMONSTER’S FIRST DAY.  And then I showed them the messy, marked-up stack of papers I was about to deliver to UPS…copy edits for my 2012 novel EYE OF THE STORM.

The kids voted on which one they wanted  me to read.  Any guesses?

It was the messy, marked-up EYE OF THE STORM manuscipt!  I shared a couple pages with them before we all went to eat lunch.

Some authors from the list made three, four, five, or MORE dates for World Read Aloud Day!

Author Laurel Snyder ended up Skyping into six classrooms before her day was through. Donna Gephart had a busy day, too – her blog post about it is called “Six Schools, Five States, and One Pair of Bunny Slippers!”

Kelly Moore’s classes in Ontario hooked up with authors Lee Garretson and Ruth Spiro for online read-alouds.

Kelly’s team made the celebration last all day long.  In addition to the author Skype read-alouds, it included a Book Lovers Breakfast, Book Swap, Reading Buddies, Guest Parent Readers, Collaborative Book Making with Grades 1 & 4, and a Character Convention where students and teachers dressed up as favorite book characters.  Here are Kelly,  Charlotte Cornel, and Stephanie Martin) who dressed as Robert Munsch’s Paperbag Princesses!

If you have other photos or stories of World Read Aloud Day posted online, please feel free to share a link to them in the comments!

Thanks to everyone who shared photos for this post…and to LitWorld and all the teachers & authors who made magic happen for kids today. One teacher emailed me tonight and said one of her students summed it up best. “I wish every day could be like this.”

Skating, Frogs & Sea Monsters on World Read Aloud Day!

March 9th is World Read Aloud Day — a holiday that might not make it onto every calendar, but it sure is circled on mine.  Reading aloud has always been a big deal to me…from my toddler days when I’d stalk my parents’ dinner guests with a big pile of books in my arms to now, when I read aloud to kids both at home and at school every day.

I shared a lot more thoughts on reading aloud last spring, in this open letter to the Association of Booksellers for Children, when The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. won the E.B. White Read Aloud Award.  But right now…what I’d really like to do is read.

Here are three videos of me reading aloud in my living room.  No fancy cameras, no lights, no makeup…just a fireplace, a flipcam and three books.  (One of them, SUGAR AND ICE, came out in December, but the other two aren’t out yet, so you’re getting a special WRAD sneak preview!)  So get yourself a cup of hot chocolate or a carton of milk (I’m guessing some of you are watching at school today) and enjoy.

No matter who you are or where you are, I hope you’ll share a book with someone today, too!

Butterflies Go Free in Montreal!

I’m looking out the window at nearly two feet of new snow tonight, but before this latest winter storm hit, we got a welcome taste of spring in Montreal this weekend.

Butterflies Go Free is an annual event at the Montreal Botanical Gardens. Thousands of butterflies — almost all from butterfly farms in Costa Rica — are hatched in the main greenhouse, where visitors young and old can walk among them. It was especially fun to see the Blue Morpho butterflies this year.

We wondered if any of these were relatives of the butterflies we’d seen in the rain forest in Costa Rica this summer!

The butterflies were stunning — moths, too — and spending a couple hours with them made me feel like Spring isn’t so far away. Here are a few more photos…just in case you’re still shoveling out, too!

Remember…on the calendar at least…just two more weeks until Spring!

REAL REVISION has a cover!

As many of you know, my first teacher resource book, REAL REVISION: AUTHORS’ STRATEGIES TO SHARE WITH STUDENT WRITERS, comes out this May. It’s a book designed to help teachers – and anyone who teaches writing, really – share strategies for revision that go beyond quick proofreading and spell-checking.  What I love most about this project was that I got to interview dozens of my favorite middle grade authors about how they revise their books and then translate those strategies into activities that teachers can use in the classroom. Of course, the book is loaded with stories, tips, and tricks from my own writing desk and my classroom, too.

Here’s what the cover will look like!

Word is that Stenhouse will be offering a sneak preview of this book online in May – I’ll be sure to share a link later on!

Last Winter Kiss – A Poem in Photos

I’ve been dreaming of beaches
and seashells,
drinks with tiny umbrellas,
and the smell of coconut lotion.

I thought I was tired of winter,
but deep in the woods,
she wooed me back today.

I fell for that old dappled sunlight trick,
and swooned.

Now look up, she whispered,

I stared at the sun through the trees
until my eyes watered.
She laughed,
And shook a glittering of snow
into my hair.

She gathered up her best bouquets,
painted all in white.

Beech leaves thin as paper
lifted teaspoons of grated diamonds
to sparkle in the sun.

Then Winter called me closer,

I have secrets yet to tell
before the thaw.

Things twisted and beautiful

…that you can only see with me.

She brought chickadees to sing
in a theater with no ceiling.

It had cushioned white seats,
and walls of cedar and pine.

So I followed her to edge of the world —
At least it felt that way.

We stayed a long time.

It was so quiet,
so hushed with silent white.

There was nothing left to do but head home.

Don’t go, she begged.

We can make angels.

I’ll paint your shadow in violet
on the snow.

(Stay another hour ~
I’ll make you taller and thinner, too!)

But there was hot chocolate to drink.

And Spring will come whispering warm in my ear
any week now.
Winter knows — how could she not? —
Mud and crocuses are impossible to resist.

But today – just for today –
She had me back.
I was smitten all over again.

Meet Marty McGuire! (And finally see the cover!!)

My MARTY MCGUIRE chapter book series with Scholastic launches May 1st, and my editor just gave me the go-ahead to show you the cover art that Brian Floca created for the first book.  So without further delay…heeeeere’s Marty!

I love both the cover art and the inside illustrations so much I can barely stand it. (Fact: I screamed in the middle of a crowded coffee shop when my editor told me on the phone that Scholastic had landed Brian to illustrate.)  And I can’t wait for Marty’s May 1st release. She’ll be available in both hardcover and paperback right from the start, and there’s an audio book, too. Here’s the jacket blurb:

Meet Marty McGuire! Marty would rather spend recess catching frogs in the pond than playing dress-up with the other girls in third grade. o when her teacher casts Marty as the princess in the class play, Marty’s absolutely, positively sure that there’s been a huge mistake! But after a special lesson in the art of improvisation, Marty comes up with her own plan to improve the play. Maybe a princess in muddy sneakers can live happily ever after, after all!

Marty’s available for pre-order on Indiebound, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon – and if you’re a GoodReads person, you can add her to your to-read list here.

I’ll be doing a Marty McGuire Skype tour in May, so just drop me a note if you’d like me to visit your classroom or library to introduce Marty to your kids & talk about writing!

What Lisa Taught Me…

The world lost a talented writer and a warm, wonderful person when author Lisa Wolfson (L.K. Madigan) passed away this morning.  She was the author of award-winning books, FLASH BURNOUT and THE MERMAID’S MIRROR, a wife and a mom, and a friend to many – even those of us who were only lucky enough to meet her in person once or twice at a conference. She was just your friend right away; you knew that. She made sure.

When Lisa shared her diagnosis of pancreatic cancer on her blog last month, some of us put together photos and bits of writing to send her.  I have to think that Lisa, a writer who understood the healing power of words so well, would be okay with me sharing it with you, too.

What Lisa Taught Me…


That photographs capture time.

That words spoken swirl in the air

Like snowflakes

Landing on a sleeve,

Melting in a lovely instant.

That words written can stay,

And on beloved dog-eared pages,

Voices live forever.

They whisper secrets

And comfort and hope.

 

That we are all a little like Blake,

Loyal and flawed

Wondrous even in our mistakes.

Even as we stumble confused,

Reaching out a hand

To steady someone else.

 

That we are all a bit like Lena,

Searching for ourselves

In worlds unknown.

Brave and beautiful in our fear.

And loved.

Oh, loved.

 

That we are imperfect travelers

On this journey.

That even on the coldest day,

When the wind blows for all it’s worth

And there are rocks on the path…

Even then,

What a soaring, swooping, love-filled

Miracle of a journey

it is.


Skyping & Celebrating! World Read Aloud Day is March 9th

Where will you be on World Read Aloud Day?  Reading to someone, I hope!  If you want me to read to you or your students, just click here to check out my World Read Aloud Day celebration online; I’m sharing video read-alouds of three of my books (two that aren’t even out yet!)

During lunchtime on World Read Aloud Day, I’ll be sharing a Skype read-aloud with teacher Karla Duff’s 6th graders in Oelwein, Iowa.  Karla (she’s @teacher6th on Twitter) contacted me to be part of a special Skype read-aloud project for her kids, and I thought it was a great idea. In case other teachers & librarians want to join her in Skyping authors into classrooms and libraries for short read-alouds of their work, here’s a list of authors who are volunteering their time to do this on March 9th!  To make arrangements, please click on the author’s website to make sure his or her books are a good match for your students. Then email the author directly to make arrangements.  Happy reading!

Authors Available for Skype Read-Alouds on March 9th

Sarah Albee
Olugbemisola Amusashonubi-Perkovich
Sarah Brannen
Stephanie Burgis
Laurie Calkhoven
Katie Davis
Karen Day
Erin Dionne
Jennifer Elvgren
Elizabeth Falk
Jody Feldman
Brenda Ferber
Alison Ashley Formento
Deborah Freedman
Dee Garretson
Donna Gephart
Gwendolyn Hooks
Catherine Ipcizade
Tara Lazar
Richard Newsome
Darcy Pattison
A.S. Peterson

Sarah Prineas
Jean Reidy
Inara Scott
Laurel Snyder
Ruth Spiro
Anastasia Suen
Jennifer Trafton
Iza Trapani
Kristin Tubb

Linda Urban
Samantha Vamos
Greg van Eekhout
Tracie Vaughn Zimmer
Amy Brecount White

Authors who are listed… If your schedule for March 9th fills up, please drop me a note & I’ll remove your name.

Authors who aren’t listed… Please leave a comment with your name & website link if you’d like to be added!

best tracker

Maine Kids Celebrate “What Happened to Your Book Today!”

Last month, when I shared this poem, "What Happened to Your Book Today" on my blog, I got a note from Susan Dee, a 4th and 5th grade looping teacher in Biddeford, Maine asking if she could share it with her students. Of course!  I told her I’d be honored.

Today, she sent me a couple photos that made me cry in the best possible way.  Her students put together a classroom display of the poem, along with their artwork celebrating books that were "written just for them."

Thank you so much, Susan, and Biddeford students!  Your artwork is absolutely beautiful, and I’m pretty sure I can speak for all the authors whose books you read when I tell you that you guys are the reason we write.

OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW Cover Art!

My editor says I can share the cover art for my picture book, OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW.  Ready to think snowy thoughts?  Here it is!

OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW is the story of a girl who goes cross country skiing with her father and discovers the secret world of animals living under the snow. 

A little snowy trivia  now…

  • The illustrator for this book, Christopher Silas Neal, also did the cover for the book I’m reading aloud with my 7th graders right now, Laurie Halse Anderson’s CHAINS.
  • OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW is actually the first book my agent sold for me, though it’s coming out after four other titles she sold later on.
  • I wrote the first draft of this book on the back of a middle school attendance sheet, on a bus returning from a snowshoe field trip in the Adirondacks.  The ride was bumpy.  The draft was messy.  But it worked out.

OVER AND UNDER THE SNOW comes out this fall from Chronicle Books.