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It's March and Little Brown School is in the midst of our conference season! We just got back from IRA West in Phoenix this past week. We had two great authors, Elizabeth Cody Kimmel and Chris Gall, signing for us and involved in the programs.
Now we are gearing up for the Texas Library Association in Houston, April 1-3. Please come visit us in Booth #1549! We have a great line-up of authors, including Justina Chen Headley who's latest book North of Beautiful has received three starred reviews already. We also have Sara Zarr, J. Patrick Lewis, graphic novelist Svetlana Chmakova and Justin Somper of Vampirates fame traveling all the way from the UK.
We also have some exciting contest opportunities at James Patterson's Maximum Read web page. Have your teens enter in a Daniel X creative writing contest and they can have a chance to be featured in the next book in the series.
For all the Twilight fans we have also launched a new website this month, www.thetwilightsaga.com where you can join and become a part of a message board and get the latest news about the series. Be sure to tell all your teens, or join yourself!
If you haven't yet, please join us on Facebook. We are updating the page regularly with lot's of new videos and discussions.
In other news, are you interested in booking an author to come visit your school? Let us know! Many of our authors are available to come talk to your students about their books. Visit our website at www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/librarians_request-author-visit.aspx and download our Author Appearance kit. You can even search by region so you can find someone close to home.
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Fortune's Magic Farm
by Suzanne Selfors
Here is a new book from Suzanne who wrote the widely acclaimed,
To Catch a Mermaid. This is a sweet story about a young orphaned girl who finds out she is the heir to a magic farm. It's basically every child's dream. Or everyone's dream! I know I wouldn't mind finding out that I was the heir to anything. Suzanne has a loyal following of fans and this will not disappoint them. She keeps it light and fanciful!
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Secrets of My Hollywood Life: Paparazzi Princess
by Jen Calonita
The latest in the series, Calonita continues to explore the life of Kaitlin Burke, the star of a primetime tv show. This series is great for teens who are in awe of the Hollywood lifestyle, but the books are much more down to earth than you would think. There is still the glamour, but also life lessons that any teen should be able to appreciate. Calonita is an excellent storyteller and she has a new book with us coming out in May, Sleepaway Girls, about a summer camp experience. This is a lot for Jen, who also became a new mom this year!
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Ann Dee Ellis is the author of
This is What I Did, a 2008 BBYA title, and Everything is Fine. a new novel coming out in March 2009. Her books are written in free verse and she gives her characters a powerful voice that many teens will relate to. She lives in American Forks, Utah with her husband and two young sons.
Ann in her own words...
Playing Dead
By Ann Dee Ellis |
When my sister would bring friends home, I'd wait quietly in the spare bedroom and when they passed in the hall, I'd make a gurgling noise and collapse.
Friends: confused and concerned.
Sister: furious and foaming.
Me: happily playing dead on the green carpet.
When I talk to my sister about my behavior now, she still thinks I was crazy. "Why did you do that?"
My answer? "Why wouldn't I do that?"
She shakes her head. "You're weird," she says.
"No, you're weird," I say. And then we eat popcorn.
She will never understand. Not completely. She will never get why I used to hide in the blanket closet for hours. She'll never understand why I wore that raggy black shawl over my head for days. And she'll never understand why I used to close my eyes and throw my Halloween candy all over my room so I would find pieces later. She knows I did those things but she still doesn't know why.
Mazzy does.
Mazzy is the main character in my upcoming book, Everything is Fine. And Mazzy gets that part of me, the "weird" part of me completely. Why? Because Mazzy karate chops at people. She sits on the curb and digs out earwax. She puts oranges in her bikini top and one time, the night her mom hit the car with the baseball bat, that night, she hid in the blanket closet for hours.
That's one of the great things about writing—feeling understood. Mazzy and I have a lot in common. We relate. At the same time, we are not the same. As I wrote the book, I saw her take care of a bed-ridden mother, something I have never had to do. I watched her pull weeds with her eccentric across-the-street neighbor, something I wish I could do. And I watched her stand up for herself in a crisis, something I wonder if I could do. Mazzy pushed me to be someone different.
Another example: My first book. This is What I Did:
The main character, Logan, is an awkward thirteen-year old boy. What could we possibly have in common?
A lot.
Logan stumbles over his words. He constantly feels like he's one step behind. He hides in his room and drinks weight loss shakes. He says the nothing when he's supposed to say something and something when he's supposed to say nothing.
This is me. Last week. Today. Tomorrow.
However, on top of all that, Logan has lost his best friend, he's moved to a new school, and he has a secret.
As I wrote, I discovered with Logan how to deal with losing the one person who helped you make it through the day, how it would feel to move to a new school where no one seems to want to know you, and what to do with a secret that keeps finding you no matter how hard you try to lose it.
That's the magic of writing fiction. I get to be myself and someone else at the same time. I get to see what decisions they make and decide if that's the decision I'd make. As a writer, this is both exhilarating and exhausting. I get to play dead every day.
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If you are a fan of Jen Calonita then you are in luck. She has just embarked on an author tour on the West Coast.
3/2 Third Place Books - Lake Forest Park, WA
3/3 Secret Garden Bookshop – Seattle, WA
3/4 Hicklebee's – San Jose, CA
3/5 Barnes & Noble – Walnut Creek, CA and Books Inc – San Francisco, CA
3/6 A Whale of a Tale – Irvine, CA and Mrs. Nelson's – LaVerne, CA
3/9 Barnes & Noble – Phoenix, AZ and Changing Hands – Tempe, AZ
3/10 King's English Bookshop – Salt Lake City, UT
3/11 Barnes & Noble – Salt Lake City, UT
If you are in the Charlottesville, VA area then you should attend the 15th
Annual Virginia Book Festival from March 18-22. For more info visit
www.vabook.org/index.html/. If you have a community event that you would
like Little, Brown School to announce in our newsletter please email
littlebrownschool@hbgusa.comwith the info.
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Wabi Sabi from Mark Reibstein and Ed Young has been included in the 2009 Notable Books for a Global Society list sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English. WABI SABI will also be featured in an upcoming Language Arts article on notable poetry books from 2008. Congratulations! |
The Brooklyn Public Library is the fourth largest system in the country. They have just issued their annual lists: Books for Babies and Books for Pre-K to Sixth Graders. We are pleased to announce that the following titles have been included:-
Books for Babies, Toddlers & Preschoolers
Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberley
Miss Mary Mack: A Hand-Clapping Rhyme by Mary Ann Hoberman
Books for Pre-K to Sixth Graders
Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberley
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
The Year of the Dog by Grace Lin
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Girl Overboard by Justina Chen Headley and
The Kayla Chronicles by Sherri Winston have both made the 2009 Amelia Bloomer list for top feminist fiction for Young Readers. Congratulations Justina and Sherri! |
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Sergio Makes a Splash by Edel Rodriguez has been named one of the Pennsylvania Center for the Books Baker's Dozen Books: the 13 Best Books for Family Literacy published in 2008. |
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The first 25 people that respond to littlebrownschool@hbgusa.com with FREE EVERYTHING IS FINE in the subject line will receive a finished copy of Everything is Fine. PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR SHIPPING ADDRESS (no PO Box) in the email.
No purchase or payment of money is necessary to enter or win To enter this sweepstakes, you should send an email to FREE EVERYTHING IS FINE offer. Limit of one entry per person. Sweepstakes is open for TWO DAYS ONLY and begins March 2, 2008, 11:00 am (ET) and ends on March 6, 2008, 11:00 am (ET). There will be 25 prizes awarded. No returns or substitutions. Each prize has an approximate retail value of $16.99. Winners will be notified by email on or before March 5, 2008, and may be asked to sign and return a short affidavit to confirm eligibility and agreement to abide by these official rules. The odds of winning depend upon the number of eligible entries received. Available to all United States residents over the age of 18 who are librarians and/or educators. Sponsor, and its affiliates and their employees and families, are not eligible to enter. Applicable taxes are the sole responsibility of the winners. Sponsor reserves the right at any time to cancel or modify this sweepstakes in whole or in part in the event of technical or other difficulties. By participating in this sweepstakes, entrant agrees to be bound by these official rules. Prize will be awarded to alternate winner if prize notification cannot be made or is otherwise undeliverable. Sweepstakes sponsored by Hachette Book Group USA, Inc., 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017, Attention: Victoria Stapleton, Room 15-164.
There's the bell!! We'll be back next month!
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