Archive for the ‘blogging’ Category

I went back to Davis Magnet School today to facilitate the writing of captions. If you remember, I went out with second graders earlier this month as they photographed their neighborhood for a unit called Davis on the Map. Today, I sat with groups of four or five at a time at a kidney shaped table and we talked about proper nouns, active verbs, capitalization, spelling, and pronouns. We learned words: official, baptismal, peel, kiln, convince, unresolved and Jamaica. We had to consult dictionaries, the internet (which was slow and ineffective – ha!), and the teacher’s notes.

As the teacher and I worked with each group writing captions, the other students spent time going from one center to another. One of the centers was dedicated to books that were related to our unit. I added a work-in-progress of mine to the pile and invited the students to read it and make comments. Once our caption writing work was done, I talked with three students about the manuscript. One girl expressed her observations in the form of “text to self connections and text to text connections.” This particular manuscript is missing an ending so I asked them to give me their ideas and, of course, they had some good ones. I love interacting with my audience!

Wolfsnail update: A new review of Wolfsnail: A Backyard Predator went up on Maggie Reads, the blog of a librarian in the northeast part of the state. I really appreciate the kind words about the book and the recommendations for its use with kids. She also mentioned Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature.

A technical problem occurred with the blog this week and, in an attempt to fix it, my subscriber database was wiped out. Richard and I went through our list of comments and tried to re-create the subscriber list. This is why you may have gotten an email from the blog requesting confirmation that you are a subscriber. If you didn’t and you want to subscribe, please do so on the left column of the blog. Sorry for the inconvenience.

It was a big weekend for Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature. On Friday, I started the day as a guest on The Gestalt Gardener, a radio show on Mississippi Public Broadcasting hosted by Felder Rushing. We talked about the book and getting kids excited about the natural world, math, and gardening. I am a longtime listener to Felder’s show so I was familiar with its rhythms; Felder fielded about 8 calls and we fit our conversation in around them. The show was re-broadcast the next morning, which coincided with our signing at Lemuria. Many of our guests at the signing told us they had heard the show. I thank Felder and Ezra Wall, the show’s producer, for having me.

Lots of friends, old and new, came out for the signing, which began during Lemuria’s regular Saturday story hour. (Thank you, Patty, for taking photographs.) One attendee, named Kimberly, brought along an observation she wrote after spending some time talking about Fibonacci numbers and pinecones with her grandmother. (Her grandmother had heard the Gestalt Gardener show.)

Today is the reading and signing party at Lemuria. We’re looking forward to seeing young readers and their grownups at 10 a.m. for some Fibonacci fun!

After being on a blog tour all week (thanks to all of the hosts), we have the featured attraction right here. I interviewed Richard about his unique contribution to Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature.

This is the fun portrait I took of him when we were doing our publicity photo shoot. The powers that be at the publishing house wanted a straight (faced) shot for the catalog so I decided we’d use it here.

Today’s fifth stop on the blog book tour is on Dori Reads, written by my writer friend Doraine Bennett. She asked me about using Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature in classrooms with students of different ages.

We’re nearing the end of the blog book tour; I thank everyone who hosted and followed along. Tomorrow, the day of our book launch at Lemuria, I will post an interview with my oft-silent co-photographer, Richard Campbell.

Our tour included stops at Writing Snacks, Teaching Authors, Joseph D’Agnese’s Blog, Live. Love. Explore., Elizabeth O. Dulemba’s Blog, and My Log Cabin Life.

Today, the blog tour continues at My Log Cabin Life by Julie Owen. Because Julie and I share a passion for photography, today’s post centers on the images.

If you missed previous posts, check them out at:

Monday: Joseph D’Agnese’s blog.

Tuesday: Live. Love Explore. by Irene Latham.

Wednesday: Elizabeth O. Dulemba’s blog.

Tommorrow’s post will be at Dori Reads by Doraine Bennett.

I am pleased to report that Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature received a favorable review in Kirkus. “This math-and-science title is another beautiful photo-essay by the creators of Wolfsnail (2008). … This clear demonstration of complex ideas will be welcomed in elementary classrooms.”

To learn more interesting facts about Growing Patterns, follow me on my virtual book tour over to Live. Love. Explore., written by Irene Latham.

If you missed Monday’s stop, you can check it out at Joe D’Agnese’s blog.

This month, I am the featured guest on WritingSnacks.com, a website with lots of useful information for writers. Dana Cleveland Konop and Melissa Thomas-Dubois, two of my colleagues in the Southern Breeze region of SCBWI, created the site.

As the title would suggest, one of the things you’ll find out in the interview is my favorite writing snack.

I lifted this photo from my friend Julie’s blog. This is one of her students reading my book. I get a great deal of satisfaction from watching kids read my books. Julie’s a mom, part-time librarian, part-time writer, knitter, and crafter. Just an all-around kindred spirit. I love her blog because it has lots of photographs and she uses colors and images so well. You can read the post she wrote about photographing student engagement here. We are partnering on some work at her school (St. Therese Catholic School) this spring. I’m sure I’ll be sharing some about that in the coming months.

In the meantime, I find myself doing lots of paperwork related to the business side of being an author and illustrator. I am checking each of the 1099′s as they come in against my own records of last year’s income. So far, of the three that have come, I have found mistakes in two. I am setting up spreadsheets to record 2010 expenses, income, mileage, and sales tax. I am famous, or infamous, depending on how you look at it, for the piles of papers on my kitchen desk and my “real” desk. I would always rather be creating, blogging, editing photos, writing, anything really, than doing paperwork. But such is life.