Places to Go, People to See

Tomorrow, I’m the author guest at Peru Intermediate School‘s Reading Celebration Kickoff for the month of May.  (That’s Peru, NY…not Peru, South America. If you want to hear about the South America Peru, you should visit  , who just had a school visit there!)  I’m excited to meet the kids, talk about some books I loved when I was younger, and share our reading goals for the month.

Friday, I’m presenting a workshop at Vermont’s DCF Conference:

Celebrating 400 Years on Lake Champlain:  Author and English teacher Kate Messner discusses her two historical novels set on Lake Champlain as well as her upcoming book The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z (Walker, Fall ’09).  Kate will share her research and writing process as well as strategies for using her books in the classroom to help celebrate the history and natural landscape of Vermont.

I’m looking forward to spending the day at the conference. I’ll get to hang out with cool librarians and hear talks from David Macauley, whose new book The Way We Work is just so cool, and Beth Kanell, whose historical YA novel The Darkness Under the Water is wonderfully haunting.

And now, some places you might want to go and people you might want to visit…

First of all, have you read Winnie’s War by Jenny Moss?  This historical novel, set during the 1918 influenza epidemic, is terrific and suddenly feels very timely.  I’m on a panel with Jenny at the 2009 NCTE conference, talking about pairing fiction and nonfiction in the classroom, so we chat online from time to time.  She was telling me that she has a school visit coming up soon, and I can just imagine the questions she’ll be getting.  It’s a great title for teachers who want to explore the changes in medicine, disease preparedness, and technology over the past century.

Kristy Dempsey’s picture book  Me With You is on its way to bookstores as we speak, and if you’ve had a peek at the book trailer on her website, you know how cute this one is.  The illustrations by Christopher Denise are just charming. Kristy is running a contest where you can win a copy over at  .

Linda Urban is reading and signing copies of her new picture book Mouse Was Mad, illustrated by Henry Cole, at Flying Pig Bookstore in Shelburne, VT Saturday morning at 11.  I already have my signed copy and have read it at least a dozen times since Saturday.  I’ve laughed every single time.

And finally, my friend   has a new hedgehog.  Seriously.  Go visit and help her name the prickly critter.