Archive for the ‘marketing’ Category

Wolfsnail:  A Backyard Predator won the Mississippi Library Association’s Children’s Book Award. I am thrilled to have won this award and I thank the MLA’s 2010 Authors Awards Committee for the recognition. I will accept the award during the MLA’s annual conference in Vicksburg, which is October 20-22.

The committee voted in February to add the children’s award to its list, which has traditionally included fiction and nonfiction for adults. A list of previous award winners can be found here.

In other news, my friends at Boyds Mills Press shared today that a professor in the College of Education at the University of Illinois is using Wolfsnail in a course on using children’s literature to teach.

When I posted photographs from our recent trip to Oregon, I forgot to include this one, which is actually one of my favorites. Somehow it didn’t get flagged. I hope you enjoy the two semi-circles in the composition as much as we do.

Two of the young visitors at Square Books Jr. use Private Eye jewelers loupes to examine snails and other things from my basket. This is Sallie and Julia, the daughters of fellow writer/illustrator Sarah Frances, who hails from Oxford. This is a great bookstore for settling in and browsing a terrific collection.
Here is the desk Jill set up for me to sign on. She made me sit there to read, too. You can see her pictures of that section of the event on Square Books Jr.’s Facebook page. And, here is Jill.

Before the bookstore, I went to the Oxford Public Library for a presentation for young readers. The kids had fantastic questions — about everything from snails to photography. I think Nancy Opalko, the children’s librarian, for the invitation. I also got to see Judy Card, the youth services coordinator for the First Regional Library, of which the Oxford branch is a part. I first met Nancy and Judy at the Mississippi Library Association conference last fall and wrote about it here.

I received permission to post a recent television interview on my website. You can check it out here.

I appreciate the help of Bob Burks, the Director of New Media for WLBT-Channel 3, the NBC affiliate in Jackson.

Growing Patterns was included in a roundup of concept books in the May 2010 issue of Notes from the Horn Book, an online newsletter. The issue’s headliner is an interesting interview with Laura Vaccaro Seeger. I’d already seen and noted the three other books grouped with mine: Stephen R. Swinburne’s Whose Shoes? Mark Gonyea’s A Book About Color, and Ken Robbins’s For Good Measure. Three of the four are illustrated with photographs and two of the four (mine and Swinburne’s) are books by my publisher: Boyds Mills Press. Cool!

Another note from the Notes newsletter: Deborah Wiles‘s Countdown is featured in a roundup of War Stories. I am looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of this book, which is billed as a documentary novel. It is in the War Stories section because it deals with the Cold War. (I have just finished a Korean War story, Chang-rae Lee’s The Surrendered and I am about to begin Karl Marlantes’ Matterhorn, a Vietnam War story.)

I found this frog in the basement and released it to a halfway house (plastic tub with lots of dirt and hiding places) onto my porch. Richard snapped a few photos before it took its leave. This is the first time I’ve seen one of these guys around. Mostly, I just see toads.

My copy of The Horn Book Magazine arrived while I was away. Though my editor had sent me an electronic copy of Tanya D. Auger’s review for Growing Patterns and I wrote about it here, it was very nice to see the hard copy.

It is my first review since the magazine added color throughout. I love the page they chose to feature next to the review. It seemed to print a little dark, but gives readers a good look  at the book’s design.

Here’s an excerpt: “With its glossy, clutter-free pages; crisp, colorful photographs; and clear, straight-to-the-point text, this interactive picture book by the creators of Wolfsnail is an attractive, satisfying introduction to the Fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8… A lone seed and a peace lily with its single petal are presented as the first two elements of the number pattern. Readers are then asked to count the petals on a crown of thorns (2), a spiderwort (3), a flowering quince (5), and a cosmos (8). Each new flower is pictured in an increasingly larger square with dimensions linked to its number of petals (e.g., the spiderwort is shown in a three-by-three square, the quince in a five-by-five square, etc.).”

Just like in Publisher’s Weekly, the Growing Patterns review appears next to a review of Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci, a book by Joseph D’Agnese. I hope they’ll pop up together in home, classroom, school, and public libraries, too.

Once again, just photos. A full report will be coming soon:

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.

Read about how I got the idea to write a picture book featuring Fibonacci Numbers in nature at today’s stop on the virtual book tour: Elizabeth O. Dulemba’s blog. An author and illustrator, Elizabeth has a lot of cool stuff on her website so poke around a little after you check out the post.

Monday’s stop: Joseph D’Agnese. Tuesday’s stop: Irene Latham.

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.