20th Anniversary of Owl Moon!

Last night was Back To School Night for my oldest daughter Alex, who is in the 4th grade. Her teacher stated that his goal for the year was to make our children leave the classroom feeling confident as writers. He was holding up the book Owl Moon, as an example of a book that took a simple idea and made a beautiful story. His point was that all things, no matter how simple - have meaning - and can have a story. As you may know, Owl Moon won the Caldecott Award in 1988.

In an interesting coincidence, I noticed today on JacketFlap's newly published books page that a 20th anniversary edition of Owl Moon was just published yesterday! This edition includes letters from author Jane Yolen and artist John Schoenherr. Here's a link to Owl Moon's book detail page. If you've read it, add it to your JacketFlap bookshelf and tell us your thoughts about it! If you haven't read it yet, I encourage you do to so!

Tracy

Pirate Day, congratulations to Wendy Mass and Carrie Jones

Pirate Day!

September 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. I searched for Pirate Day in JacketFlap's blog reader, and I saw that the wonderful & talented Elizabeth O. Dulemba has graciously posted a pirate-themed coloring book page for all to download and color in her fabulous style. My kids will now have an after-school activity to do. Thanks Elizabeth!

And speaking of Pirate Day, I was browsing JacketFlap's Newly Published books section, and I noticed that Eloise's Pirate Adventure was published yesterday (Sept. 18th) by Aladdin Paperbacks. Great timing!

Congratulations to our members!

I'd like to send a big congratulations today to two JacketFlap members. Wendy Mass, author of such fabulous books as Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life and A Mango-Shaped Space emailed to say that her new book Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall is now available, written for seventh graders and up.


Also congratulations to Carrie Jones who sold two books to Bloomsbury. The first book is called NEED. Read her Super Great News post for the details. Great job!


Book Stores in the news

Jessica Stockton of The Written Nerd blog did a great job of summing up some recent news articles regarding independent book stores versus the big chains. It is quite interesting to take note that while big chains like Barnes and Nobles are closing shops the independent ma & pa shops might be making a come-back. Read her post here.


New Member Welcome

I always get a kick out of checking JacketFlap's New Members page to see the faces of the people that just joined the site. From time to time, I'm going to introduce some of our new members here in my blog. I'd like everyone to join me today in welcoming Marjorie van Heerden. Since the publication of her first children’s picture book in 1983 Marjorie has written and/or illustrated more than 80 children’s books and has been published in 33 languages in Africa, England, Europe, Canada and the USA. She was born in South Africa, lived in Stellenbosch near Cape Town for 20 years, in Linden, Johannesburg for a decade, travelled for eighteen months on honeymoon in a camper van around Europe, lived for a year on the banks of Lake Michigan in the USA and for four years in a forest on a mountain north of Athens in Greece. Now her studio overlooks False Bay, once again near Cape Town, South Africa. Please leave a comment on Marjorie's profile page to welcome her to JacketFlap!

Tracy

Calling all Bloggers - Participate in Blogging for a Cure

The incredible Jules & Eisha at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast are organizing a multi-blog effort to help raise awareness of the Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure fundraising effort benefiting the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). As many of you already know, this stems from the heart-wrenching news of the death of Robert Mercer, Grace Lin’s husband, who passed away at the end of last month, due to cancer. Grace is the driving force behind the Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure fundraising effort, which she began after Robert was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma. She wrote Robert’s Snow (Viking Books; 2004) soon after that diagnosis.

More than 200 well-known children’s book illustrators from around the world have been given a five-inch wooden snowflake to decorate at will. Like actual snowflakes, each design is unique. You can see the 2005 snowflakes at this site. The 2007 online auctions for bidding on these hand-painted snowflakes will take place in three separate auctions, open to everyone, from November 19 to 23, November 26-30, and December 3-7.

I'm encouraging all of your with blogs to volunteer to drive traffic to the site for this year’s auctions and help raise money for the cause by highlighting the illustrators who have created snowflakes for these upcoming ’07 auctions — as well as post the unique snowflakes they have made (one at a time at each blog, which the DFCI has graciously given permission to do), ultimately driving as much traffic as we possibly can to the Robert’s Snow online auctions.

Jules & Eisha are reaching out to all of you to help raise awareness for this well-needed cause. As we all know, cancer does not discriminate due to age. Robert was only 35. Combined, we are a big neighborhood in this suburb of the Internet that we call the Kidlitosphere. Let’s continue to make this neighborhood great by making a difference in each other’s lives. Please read the post at Seven Impossible Things for more information.

Tracy